"You must permit me to remind you, Sir," said Edward, "with the view of giving some slight relief to the dark but forcible picture which the satirist you have just quoted has placed before us, that one truly generous and disinterested action may at least be ascribed to his Grace. I allude to the annuity which for several years previous to the death of Cowley, he liberally bestowed on that amiable man and ingenious poet; nor must we forget the very handsome monument which he erected to his memory in Westminster Abbey."

"I thank you, my dear Edward, for bringing these circumstances to my recollection, and much, indeed, do I wish that your memory were charged with more instances of a similar kind. But even acts of this description, had they been numerous, could have made little atonement to society for the injuries which his Grace has been the means of inflicting on it; for though I have praised, and justly praised, the spirit and fidelity with which Dryden has sketched the general manners, and ostensible character of the Duke, it is worthy of remark, that he has, with a forbearance, not common in

a poetical satirist, and especially in one who had just been held up to ridicule by the very personage whose portrait he was drawing, confined himself in a great measure to the foibles and follies of his adversary, to the task of enumerating what could only excite pity or contempt, when he had it in his power to depicture crimes which might have made his readers shudder."

"Can it be true," said Llwellyn, "that the Duke, according to common report, is in circumstances of pecuniary distress; that he can have dissipated the princely fortune which he once possessed ?”

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Every page in the history of this nobleman,” replied Mr. Walsingham, "carries with it something extraordinary; nor are the mutations of his property unaccompanied by features much less remarkable than those which have distinguished almost every event of his life. Deprived of his estates, which were bestowed on the Republican General Lord Fairfax, he fled to the continent, to join his unfortunate sovereign; but, anxious to retrieve his affairs, he soon after returned privately to England, and had the address to secure the affections o

Mary, daughter and sole heiress of the very man to whom his property had been assigned. This. lady he married in 1657, and, through her interest, he not only redeemed his former vast possessions from the hands of the sequestrators, but assured to himself the claim of succeeding to a large accession of wealth, as a further result of the connection. The only blameless and happy period of his life, indeed, appears to have been that which he spent under the roof of his father-in-law, in consequence of this marriage. Yet this residence, and this connection, such was his influence over the mind of Charles the Second, deprived him of no portion of the royal favour; for after the restoration, not only was he left to the enjoyment of the largest estate which any subject at that time possessed in England, but rank, and honours, and power, were accumulated on his head.

"Thus endowed with all that wealth and influence could give, with all that wit and humour, and the faculty of pleasing could bestow, what might he not have effected, both for the benefit of himself and others, had not a boundless love of pleasure, and an ambition ever restless and

unsatisfied, converted these splendid donations into the instruments of his ruin and destruction! Yes, my friend, not only has the poverty to which you have alluded overtaken him, as one consequence of this abandonment to appetite and passion, but vices of the most atrocious kind, both public and private, disaffection, and rebellion, seduction, adultery, and murder, have followed in the train. But the subject is awfully distressing, and we will, therefore, revert to what, though incidentally connected with this extraordinary character, is of itself an object of pleasing contemplation, the Castle of Helmsley."

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"I must confess," remarked Llwellyn, "that while these relics of feudal strength and magnificence are haunted by a being so guilty as their present Lord, they can scarcely be viewed without the intrusion of very unwelcome associations. His absence, therefore, must render a visit to these striking remains of ancient baronial grandeur, an object not to be neglected by those who have never had the gratification of seeing them; and, of course, I recommend you, my love," addressing Hoel," to avail

yourself of Edward's kind offer, whenever the weather and his leisure will allow you to undertake the excursion."

One great source of entertainment, indeed, to these young people, was founded on their mutual taste for the beauties of nature, and for those interesting vestiges of other days, which time, and the still more destructive hand of man, had spared. For Hoel, though apparently not more than fifteen years old, had long been the companion of his father's walks; and to have been with Llwellyn on these occasions, while the enjoyment of sight was yet granted to him, without catching a portion of his enthusiasm was impossible. Edward, as we have already seen, was, both from disposition, accident, and reading, a lover of whatever was wild and pensive, imaginative and sublime; and it is, therefore, an easy task to conceive, how greatly their pleasures must have been enhanced, by the free and unreserved communication which now subsisted between them. From the rising to the setting sun, in fact, with the exception of a few hours devoted to the educational arrangements of Mr. Walsingham, they were