could not set his experience of her principles against her apparent conduct, and he soon fled from that beloved circle which he had so longed to behold, to vent in solitude his anguish and his forebodings, and to deplore, while he humbly bowed to it, that cruel dispensation which had converted into the most agonizing moment of his life that moment, which he had fondly expected would have proved the happiest." Madeline and her husband enjoyed the greatest happiness in their retirement; and after having spent a few months in France, Madeline blessed her husband with an heir to the house of Glencarron. Time at last corroded their happiness,and unfounded jealousy, perhaps inseparable from true affection, aided by the gloom occasioned by her mysterious situation, worked so powerfully on the feeble frame and susceptible mind of Madeline, as to induce her to take the most injudicious and dangerous resolution of deserting the protection of her husband; who had caused her great uneasiness by unneces sary absences, which she too hastily attributed to an entirely estranged "Little did I ever think this song would be so applicable to my feelings! Yes, I will dissolve the union myself before he requests me to do so, I will return him the writing, that sufficient and only proof now of our marriage (for the two witnesses are dead and I have been looking over his letters, and he does not call me his wife in any one of them); and I will inclose that and the ring in a piece of paper, and leave it on the table. Wednesday morning, 6 o'clock. I have done so, and only written in the cover-Thou art free! Thy poor Hindo! Now to pack up a small box with changes of clothes for myself and child. A London coach passes this door at seven. In London I can be concealed tili I have resolved what to do." Madeline hired a lodging, and engaged a servant to attend on her child, while she endeavoured to encrease her limited annuity left by Mr. Irwin, very by making drawings for sale---The enquiries of Falconer, however, were at last successful, and he met his wife to part no more. Their reconciliation was easily effected, and Madeline bitterly repented her unjust suspicions; they were now married according to the English Law, and Falconer soon after acknowledged her for his wife. Lady Benlomen was reconciled to the match; and letters from Madeline's father and mother encrease her happiness. The death of Lord Dalmany, to whose title and estates Falconer was heir, obliged him, with his wife and sister, to set off for Evan Castle in Scotland, and they stopped at Glencarron in the way. Tuesday night, February, 1816. "We arrived here only last night, having laid by on the Sunday. My husband, to please his sister, ordered a travelling coach down from London, belonging to the late Lord Dalmany, and her carriage followed, with the servants. The child went with us. What state we travelled in! Yet I can truly say that I felt no conscious elation of spirit at my elevation. One thought, one apprehension, that my rank would in future separate me more than ever from the beloved inhabitants of the cottage by the burn-side, annihilated all remembrance of my grandeur. I believe Lord Dalinany saw what was passing in my heart; for he said, not reproachfully but tenderly, 'Here is a creature to make a Countess of; she seems more depressed and lowly-minded than ever, since the coronet fell on her brow. Is it not so, my own Madeline? I could not speak; but the names of my parents and my sisters were on my lips. "Contrary to my expectations, Lord Dalmany chose to drive through the vil lage, and past the cottage! It was nearly dark; but I saw the well-remembered faces watching at the door. My husband instantly pulled the string, and jumping out put me himself into their out-stretched arms! I know not how I got into the house; but there I was. 'We shall see you all to-morrow, cried Dalmany: come early; quite early we must part now.' I tore myself away: tore my sleeping babe from the arms of his admiring grandfather, and we drove off. I found by the tone of Lady Benlomen's voice that she was deeply affected; but she did not speak; she only sat in silence the remainder of the way. : L "The poor Macinnons! Dalmany, as well self, was quite overpowered when he ted and missed the affectionate greetof those dear and faithful servants. Today he is full of plans for a little monut to their memory. How I love him this! Love him for this! When do I cease to love him for one moment? The beloved cottagers came while we reat breakfast, and I begged they might be shown into my dressing-room. will shew them thither myself,' said many. How kind! Is your father tered, my love?' asked Lady Benlomen: remember him in his blue bonnet, and be was then the finest looking creature that I ever saw! I was choked with pleasant emotion, and could not at first awer her. My husband now returned, and I hastened to my dressing-room. "Meetings under such circumstances, and sverflowings of hearts like these, cannot be described. We all dined together, and Lady Benlomen was very, very kind. she paid my beloved guests great attention-How surprised and how pased they were! Hark! I hear their dear voices again! They are come to take They are gone, and the little energy I felt Just setting off! Bees vanished with them. When shall meet again? and under what circum . leave of me! stances?" Madeline, however, had frequent opportunities of being with her family, and the end of the journal leaves her in the full enjoyment of every earthly bliss. We will conclude this review of one of the most faithful pictures of the human heart ever written, with two other quotations from the journal of the tender, faithful, and accomplished Madeline. "Now that my marriage is avowed, I can bear to advert to the misery which the long concealment of it occasioned me; but this I could not do even to you before, as the secrecy and the disgrace attending our situation preyed incessantly on my quiet and my health, and have, I fear, fatally undermined my constitution. O my dear kind friend! when you read this sentence, I know that you will not be inclined to blame your poor pupil severely, but will only too deeply feel that the fault brought its punishment along with it. "Thus then is my cup made full to the brim with blessings; but pray for me, my dear friend, that I may never forget the schooling which my heart received from the consequences of its weakness; and may I always consider that schooling as the greatest of all the mercies for which I have daily to lift up my soul in gratitude to heaven. Memoirs of the last ten years of the Reign of George II. by HORACE WALPOLE, and habits led us to expect much gra- effects of which are obvious; and, if said, "Philosophy teaching by exam- we become wise and much better able Perhaps no man was ever better dant turn of mind; which, though it was occasionally limited by his prejudices, was never wanting in candour to acknowledge the reasons of his own dislike, or the good qualities of the objects of his aversions. His taste in letters was good, his talent rather more than respectable, his wit severe but pregnant, and his affection for his friends warm and stedfast; of the latter, the number seems not to have been very large, though no man ever had a more extensive circle of acquaintances. He very honestly confesses in his postscript, that he cannot suppose he is exempted from that personal enmity, which operates more or less on every man's mind, and has therefore pointed out the persons whom he did not love, that allowances might be made for such descriptions of their characters as were not borne out by facts. The Memoirs commence with the beginning of the year 1751, and end with the death of George the Second, including a period of ten years. They are arranged with a chronological precision, which is necessary to a work laying claims to historical importance, and are evidence for the serious pains, which the author has bestowed upon his undertaking. They seem to have been finished about the year 1763, and were intended for publication, as appears very evidently from the frequent appeals to the reader and their avowed object. They were found with other MS. works of Lord Orford, in his library, and were directed by him to be delivered unopened and unsealed to the first son of Lady Waldgrave, who should attain the age of twenty-five years after the author's death. There is something honest and courageous, as well as a becoming delicacy for the feelings of others in this proceeding. If the object of the Noble Author had been to gratify a posthumous vengeance, the publication of his Memoirs on the day after his death would have answered that purpose; but in suppressing them, until, in all human probability, the actors in the scenes he had described should be no more, and the events have become a part of history, he seems to have resolved at once to wound no person by telling unwholesome truths, and to subject himself to the severe test of a comparison, with all the intermediate historians, who would have written upon similar subjects The severity of many of his portraits will, however, still be objected to him : no one can be more fully aware of them than the author himself appears to have been; he takes occasion more than once to vindicate himself: "If," he says, "after all, many of the characters are bad, let it be remembered, that the scenes I describe, passed in the highest life, the soil the vices like, and whoever expects to hear a detail of such heroes and philosophers, would expect— revolutions as these, brought about by What? why, transactions that never would have happened if the actors had been virtuous. ****** Here are the foibles of an age, no very bad one; treacherous ministers; mock patriots; complaisant parliaments; fallible princes. So far from being desirous of writing up to the severe dignity of the Roman historians, I am glad I have an opportunity of saying no worseyet if I had, I should have used it." He very successfully defends himself from the anticipated imputation of partiality, by showing that he has not spared his best friends: and for the trifling nature of some parts of the work, he says, "I have nothing to say for them, but that they are trides relating to considerable people; and such all curious persons have ever loved to read." that these are the parts of the voFor our own parts, we will confess lume which we like the best; the more important facts can be obtained from other sources, but the minute painting, the nice distinctions of character, and the agreeable relation of trifling anecdotes are the points which the author shines most upon. Although he bore a firm and hereditary aversion to the Stuart family, yet that of Hanover was not much more hated upon sound political principles; an object of his affection; the first he the latter, from a mere personal feeling. He indulges the severity of his temper in the following character of Frederick Prince of Wales, whose death he has been previously describing: "Thus died Frederick Prince of Wales, having resembled his pattern the Black Prince in nothing but in dying before his father. Indeed, it was not his fault if he had not distinguished himself by any warJike atchievement; he had solicited the command of the army in Scotland during the last rebellion, though that ambition was ascribed rather to his jealousy of his brother than to his courage. A bard judgment! for what he could he did! When the Royal Army lay before Carlisle, the Prince, at a great supper that he gave to his court and his favourites, as was his custom when the Princess laid-in, had ordered for the desert the citadel of Carlisle in paste, which he in person, and the maids of honour bombarded with sugar plumbs. He had disagreed with the king and queen early after his coming to England; not entirely by his own fault. The King refused to pay what debts he had left at Hanover, and it ran a little in the blood of the family to hate the eldest son; the prince himself had not so far degenerated, though a better natured man, and a much better father, as to be fondest of his second son, Prince Edward. Lord Bolingbroke, who had sown a division in the pretender's court by the scheme for the father's resigning his claim to the eldest boy, repeated the same plan of discord here on the first notice of the prince's disgusts; and the whole opposition was instructed to offer their services to the heir apparent against the crown and the minister. The prince was sensible to flattery, and had a sort of parts that made him relish the sort of parts of Lord Chesterfield, Doddington, and Lyttleton, the latter of whom, being introduced by Doddington, had wrought the disgrace of his protector. ****** His chief passion was women, but like the rest of his race, beauty was not a necessary ingredient.**** Gaming was another of his passions, but his style of play did him less honour than the amusement. He carried this dexterity into practice in more essential commerce, and was vain of it. One day, at Kennington, that he had just borrowed five thousand pounds of Doddington, seeing him pass under his window, he said to Hedges his secretary, That man is reckoned one of the most sensible men in England, yet, with all his parts, I have just wicked him out of five thousand pounds.' He was Prince's verses above alluded to; and it would be difficult to say which are the worst, the French or the English: if the Prince was no happier an imitator of the French Regent in other matters than he was in poetry, it had been well for him not to have essayed such an enterprise. Of Queen Caroline, the author says little, but with asperity and evident dislike. He places the character of the Duke of Cumberland in a more worthy and amiable light than any preceding historian. The Duke seems to have experienced little affection from his father; his importance with the nation was carefully diminished, and he was frequently neglected, and even insulted by the potential ministers. All these grievances he bore with magnanimity and forbearance, and was only induced to complain loudly upon one occasion, which we think is rather creditable to his feelings than otherwise. "Prince George (his late Majesty) making him a visit, asked to see his apartment where there are few ornaments but arms. The Duke is neither curious nor magnificent. To amuse the boy, he took down a sword and drew it. The young Prince turned pale and trembled, and thought his uncle was going to murder him. The Duke was extremely shocked, and complained to the Princess of the impressions, that had been instilled into the child against him." The Duke's campaign and ill success on the Continent are well and clearly related; and the conduct he pursued upon his return, when the king joined in the popular discontents against him, shew his courage and fortitude in a with the duty of a son and a subject to very prominent manner. He bowed the unjust censures of his father, but he was not backward in resenting the really childish, affectedly a protector of impertinent interference of other per arts and sciences, fond of displaying what he knew-a mimic, the Lord knows what a mimic! of the celebrated Duke of Or leans, in imitation of whom he wrote two or three silly French songs. His best quality was generosity, his worst insincerity, and indifference to truth; which appeared so early, that Earl Stanhope wrote to Lord Sunderland from Hanover, what I shall conclude his character with. "He has his father's head, and his mother's heart." In the appendix are some of the sons. He resigned his employments, and inflexibly refused ever to serve his Majesty again. He sent for Baron Munchausen, the Hanoverian Privy Counseller, who was known to have spoken disrespectfully of him, and said him: "Mr. Privy Counsellor, I hear the king has sent for opinions of Hanoverian Generals on my conduct; here are the opiDuke of Wolfenbuttle. As the king had nions of the Hessian Generals, and of the ordered the former to be deposited among the archives of Hanover, I hope he will do me the justice to let these be registered with them. Take them and bring them back to me to-morrow. Munchausen returned with them the next day, and with a message from the king, that his Majesty had been better informed, and thought better of his royal highness than he had done; and then Munchausen falling prostrate to kiss the lappet of his coat, the Duke with dignity and anger, checked him and said, Mr. Privy Counsellor, confine yourself to that office; and take care what you say, even though the words you repeat should be my father's. I have all proper deference for him, but I know how to punish any body else, that presumes to speak improperly of me." The author is severe enough upon the conduct of the king towards the Duke; and the testimoney he bears to the good qualities of the latter is beyond suspicion, because he has elsewhere pointed out his faults, and expressed some dislike of him, In the course of the Memoirs, no opportunity is neglected, by which the author may hold up those persons to contempt, whose treachery caused his father's political ruin; and it must be allowed that they gave him ample occasion for satisfying his vengeance. Mr. Pelham and the Duke of Newcastle, with their adherents, he never spares; his censures upon their administration have been proved to be just by the results, and their meanness and duplicity warrant the severity of his remarks. The measures of the government were feeble, and happily there were no emergencies during their stay in power, which rendered more energy and talent necessary; when the political situation of the country demanded a manly and enlightened minister, the Earl Chatham, then Mr. Pitt, took the state helm, and steered the nation through the storm and danger which threatened it. Of Lord Bolingbroke, the author speaks with aversion; but this feeling is qualified by his admiration for his abilities; indeed, they alone gave this talented apostate any claim upon our regard. Lord Orford gives him credit for eminent parts; but proves that he was void of gratitude, and a stranger to the more noble qualities of humanity. He confesses, in a parallel which he draws between him and Sir Robert Walpole, that his acquirements were far superior to those of his political rival, but he rather evidences than insists, that his own father was a more enlightened statesman and a better man. "Sir Robert Walpole and Lord Bolingbroke had set out rivals at school, lived a life of competition, and died much in the empirics." same manner, provoked at being killed by But with the same difference in the manner of their dying as had appeared in the temper of their lives: the first, with a calmness that was habitual philosophy; the other, with a rage that his affected philosophy could not disguise. The one had seen his early ambition dashed with imprisonment, from which be had shot into the sphere of his rival who was exiled, sentenced, recalled; while Walpole rose gradually to the height of temperate power, maintained it by the force of his single talents against Bolingbroke, assisted by all the considerable geniuses of England; and when driven from it, at last resigned it without a stain or a censure, and retired to a private life, without an attempt to re-establish himself-almost without a regret for what he had lost. The other unquiet, unsteady, shocked to owe his return to his enemy, more shocked to find his return was not to power, incapable of tasting the retirement which he made delightful to all who partook it, died at last with the mortification of owing his greatest reputation to the studies he had cultivated to distress his antagonist. Both were beloved in private life; Sir Robert, from the humanity and frankness of his nature; Bolingbroke, from his politeness of turn and elegance of understanding. Both were fond of women; Walpole with little delicacy; Bolingbroke, to enjoy the delicacy of pleasure. Both were extravagant, and the patriot who accused, and the minister who had been accused of rapine, died poor, or in debt. Walpole was more amiable in his virtues; Bolingbroke more agreeable in his vices t. Sir Robert Walpole was killed by Junius's medicine for the Stone; Lord Bolingbroke by a man, who had pretended to cure him for a cancer in the face. † In quibusdam virtutes non habent gratiam, in quibusdam vitia ipsa delectant.Quintil. |