give a stranger in London, like Lord Glenvarloch, a higher entertainment than to carry him to that exhibition; "unless, indeed," he added, in a whisper, "there is a paternal interdiction of the theatre as well as of the ordinary."

door, where Lord Dalgarno speedily procured a brace of stools upon the stage for his companion and himself, where, seated among the gallants of the same class, they had an opportunity of displaying their fair dresses and fashionable manners, while they criticised the piece during its progress; thus forming, at the same time, a conspicuous part of the spectacle, and an important proportion of the audience.

"I never heard my father speak of stage-plays," said Lord Glenvarloch, "for they are shows of a modern date, and unknown in Scotland. Yet, if what I have heard to their prejudice be true, I doubt much Nigel Olifaunt was too eagerly and deeply absorbed whether he would have approved of them." in the interest of the scene, to be capable of playing Approved of them!" exclaimed Lord Dalgarno-his part as became the place where he was seated. "why, George Buchanan wrote tragedies, and his He felt all the magic of that sorcerer, who had dispupil, learned and wise as himself, goes to see them, played, within the paltry circle of a wooden booth, the so it is next door to treason to abstain; and the cle-long wars of York and Lancaster, compelling the verest men in England write for the stage, and the heroes of either line to stalk across the scene in lanprettiest women in London resort to the playhouses, guage and fashion as they lived, as if the grave had and I have a brace of nags at the door which will carry given up the dead for the amusement and instruction us along the streets like wildfire, and the ride will di- of the living. Burbage, esteemed the best Richard gest our venison and ortolans, and dissipate the fumes until Garrick arose, played the tyrant and usurper with of the wine, and so let's to horse-Godd'en to you, such truth and liveliness, that when the Battle of Bosgentlemen-Godd'en, Chevalier de la Fortune." worth seemed concluded by his death, the ideas of reLord Dalgarno's grooms were in attendance with ality and deception were strongly contending in Lord two horses, and the young men mounted, the proprie- Glenvarloch's imagination, and it required him to tor upon a favourite barb, and Nigel upon a high-rouse himself from his reverie, so strange did the prodressed jennet, scarce less beautiful. As they rode to- posal at first sound, when his companion declared wards the theatre, Lord Dalgarno endeavoured to dis- King Richard should sup with them at the Mermaid. cover his friend's opinion of the company to which he had introduced him, and to combat the exceptions which he might suppose him to have taken. "And wherefore lookest thou sad," he said, "my pensive neophyte? Sage son of the Alma Mater of Low-Dutch learning, what aileth thee? Is the leaf of the living world which we have turned over in company, less fairly written than thou hadst been taught to expect? Be comforted, and pass over one little blot or two; thou wilt be doomed to read through many a page, as black as Infamy, with her sooty pinion, can make them. Remember, most immaculate Nigel, that we are in London, not Leyden-that we are studying life, not lore. Stand buff against the reproach of thine over-tender conscience, man, and when thou summest up, like a good arithmetician, the actions of the day, before you balance the account upon your pillow, tell the accusing spirit, to his brimstone beard, that if thine ears have heard the clatter of the devil's bones, thy hand hath not trowled them-that if thine eye hath seen the brawling of two angry boys, thy blade hath not been bared in their fray."

"Now, all this may be wise and witty," replied Nigel; yet I own I cannot think but that your lordship, and other men of good quality with whom we dined, might have chosen a place of meeting free from the intrusion of bullies, and a better master of your ceremonial than yonder foreign adventurer.'

ני

They were joined, at the same time, by a small party of the gentlemen with whom they had dined, which they recruited by inviting two or three of the most accomplished wits and poets, who seldom failed to attend the Fortune Theatre, and were even but too ready to conclude a day of amusement with a night of pleasure. Thither the whole party adjourned, and betwixt fertile cups of sack, excited spirits, and the emulous wit of their lively companions, seemed to realize the joyous boast of one of Ben Jonson's contemporaries, when reminding the bard of

"Those lyric feasts,

Where men such clusters had,
As made them nobly wild, not mad ;
While yet each verse of thine
Outdid the meat, outdid the frolic wine."

CHAPTER XIII.

Let the proud salmon gorge the feather'd hook,
Then strike, and then you have him-He will wince;
Spin out your line that it shall whistle from you
Some twenty yards or so, yet you shall have him-
Marry! you must have patience- the stout rock
Which is his trust, hath edges something sharp;
And the deep pool hath ooze and sludge enough
To mar your fishing-'less you are more careful.

Albion, or the Double Kings. IT is seldom that a day of pleasure, upon review, seems altogether so exquisite as the partaker of the festivity may have felt it while passing over him. Ni

a visit from his new acquaintance, Lord Dalgarno, to reconcile him entirely to himself. But this visit took place early after breakfast, and his friend's discourse was prefaced with a question, How he liked the company of the preceding evening?

"All shall be amended, Sancte Nigelle, when thou shalt come forth a new Peter the Hermit, to preach a crusade against dicing, drabbing, and company-gel Olifaunt, at least, did not feel it so, and it required keeping. We will meet for dinner in Saint Sepulchre's Church; we will dine in the chancel, drink our flask in the vestry, the parson shall draw every cork, and the clerk say amen to every health. Come, man, cheer up, and get rid of this sour and unsocial humour. Credit me, that the Puritans who object to us the follies and the frailties incident to human nature, have themselves the vices of absolute devils, privy malice and backbiting hypocrisy, and spiritual pride in all its presumption. There is much, too, in life which we must see, were it only to learn to shun it. Will Shakspeare, who lives after death, and who is presently to afford thee such pleasure as none but himself can confer, has described the gallant Falconbridge as calling that man

'a bastard to the time,
That doth not smack of observation;
Which, though I will not practise to deceive,
Yet, to avoid deceit, I mean to learn.'

But here we are at the door of the Fortune, where we
shall have matchless Will speaking for himself.-
Goblin, and you other lout, leave the horses to the
grooms, and make way for us through the press."

They dismounted, and the assiduous efforts of Lutin, elbowing, bullying, and proclaiming his master's name and title, made way through a crowd of murmuring citizens, and clamorous apprentices, to the

"Why, excellently well," said Lord Glenvarloch; "only I should have liked the wit better had it appeared to flow more freely. Every man's invention seemed on the stretch, and each extravagant simile seemed to set one half of your men of wit into a

Burbage, whom Camden terms another Roscius, was probably the original representative of Richard III., and seems to have been early almost identified with his prototype. Bishop Corbet, in his Iter Boreale, tells us that mine host of Market Bosworth

was full of ale and history.

"Hear him, See you yon wood? there Richard lay
With his whole army; look the other way,
And lo, where Richmond, in a field of gorse,
Encamp'd himself in might and all his force.
Upon this hill they met. Why, he could tell
The inch where Richmond stood, where Richard fell;
Besides, what of his knowledge he could say,
He had authentic notice from the play,
Which I might guess by's mustering up the ghosts
And policies not incident to hosts;
But chiefly by that one perspicuous thing,
Where he mistook a player for a king,
For when he would have said, that Richard died,
And call'd, a horse! a horse! he Burbage cried.”

RICHARD CORBET's Poems, Edition 1815, p. 193.

men.'

brown study to produce something which should | answer the Monarch, according to his prevailing huout-herod it." mour; and was supposed to have been very active, "And wherefore not?" said Lord Dalgarno, " or by her personal interest, in procuring her husband a what are these fellows fit for, but to play the intellect-high situation, which the gouty old viscount could ual gladiators before us? He of them who declares never have deserved by any merit of his own comhimself recreant, should, d-n him, be restricted to monplace conduct and understanding. muddy ale, and the patronage of the Waterman's It was far more easy for this lady than for her broCompany. I promise you, that many a pretty fellowther, to reconcile so young a courtier as Lord Glenhas been mortally wounded with a quibble or a car- varloch to the customs and habits of a sphere so new witchet at the Mermaid, and sent from thence, in a to him. In all civilized society, the females of dispitiable estate, to Wit's hospital in the Vintry, where tinguished rank and beauty give the tone to manners, they languish to this day amongst fools and alder- and, through these, even to morals. Lady Blackchester had, besides, interest either in the Court, or "It may be so," said Lord Nigel; "yet I could over the Court, (for its source could not be well traswear by my honour, that last night I seemed to be ced,) which created friends, and overawed those who in company with more than one man whose genius might have been disposed to play the part of enemies. and learning ought either to have placed him higher At one time, she was understood to be closely in our company, or to have withdrawn him altogether leagued with the Buckingham family, with whom from a scene, where, sooth to speak, his part seemed her brother still maintained a great intimacy; and, unworthily subordinate." although some coldness had taken place betwixt the "Now, out upon your tender conscience," said Countess and the Duchess of Buckingham, so that Lord Dalgarno; and the fico for such outcasts of they were little seen together, and the former seemed Parnassus! Why, these are the very leavings of considerably to have withdrawn herself into privacy, that noble banquet of pickled herrings and Rhenish, it was whispered, that Lady Blackchester's interest which lost London so many of her principal wit-with the great favourite was not diminished in conmongers and bards of misrule. What would you sequence of her breach with his lady. have said had you seen Nash or Green, when you interest yourself about the poor mimes you supped with last night? Suffice it, they had their drench and their doze, and they drank and slept as much as may save them from any necessity of eating till evening, when, if they are industrious, they will find patrons or players to feed them. For the rest of their wants, they can be at no loss for cold water while the New River head holds good; and your doublets of Parnassus are eternal in duration."

"Virgil and Horace had more efficient patronage," said Nigel.

Ave" replied his countryman, "but these fellows are neither Virgil nor Horace; besides, we have other spirits of another sort, to whom I will introduce you on some early occasion. Our Swan of Avon hath sung his last; but we have stout old Ben, with as much learning and genius as ever prompted the treader of sock and buskin. It is not, however, of him I mean now to speak; but I come to pray you, of dear love, to row up with me as far as Richmond, where two or three of the gallants whom you saw yesterday, mean to give music and syllabubs to a set of beauties, with some curious bright eyes among them-such, I promise you, as might win an astrologer from his worship of the galaxy. My sister leads the bevy, to whom I desire to present you. She hath her admirers at Court; and is regarded, though I might dispense with sounding her praise, as one of the beauties of the time."

There was no refusing an engagement, where the presence of the party invited, late so low in his own regard, was demanded by a lady of quality, one of the choice beauties of the time. Lord Glenvarloch accepted, as was inevitable, and spent a lively day among the gay and the fair. He was the gallant in attendance, for the day, upon his friend's sister, the beautiful Countess of Blackchester, who aimed at once at superiority in the realms of fashion, of power, and of wit.

Our accounts of the private Court intrigues of that period, and of the persons to whom they were intrusted, are not full enough to enable us to pronounce upon the various reports which arose out of the circumstances we have detailed. It is enough to say, that Lady Blackchester possessed great influence on the circle around her, both from her beauty, her abilities, and her reputed talents for Court intrigue; and that Nigel Olifaunt was not long of experiencing its power, as he became a slave in some degree to that species of habit, which carries so many men into a certain society at a certain hour, without expecting or receiving any particular degree of gratification, or even amusement.

His life for several weeks may be thus described. The ordinary was no bad introduction to the business of the day; and the young lord quickly found, that if the society there was not always irreproachable, still it formed the most convenient and agreeable place of meeting with the fashionable parties, with whom he visited Hyde Park, the theatres, and other places of public resort, or joined the gay and glittering circle which Lady Blackchester had assembled around her. Neither did he entertain the same scrupulous horror which led him originally even to hesitate entering into a place where gaming was permitted; but, on the contrary, began to admit the idea, that as there could be no harm in beholding such recreation when only indulged in to a moderate degree, so, from a parity of reasoning, there could be no objection to joining in it, always under the same restrictions. But the young lord was a Scotsman, habituated to early reflection, and totally unaccustomed to any habit which inferred a careless risk or profuse waste of money. Profusion was not his natural vice, or one likely to be acquired in the course of his education; and, in all probability, while his father anticipated with noble horror the idea of his son approaching the gaming-table, he was more startled at the idea of his becoming a gaining than a losing adventurer. The second, according to his principles, had a termina tion, a sad one indeed, in the loss of temporal fortune -the first quality went on increasing the evil which he dreaded, and perilled at once both body and soul.

She was, indeed, considerably older than her brother, and had probably completed her six lustres; but the deficiency in extreme youth was more than atoned for, in the most precise and curious accuracy in attire, an early acquaintance with every foreign However, the old lord might ground his apprehenmode, and a peculiar gift in adapting the knowledge sion, it was so far verified by his son's conduct, that, which she acquired, to her own particular features from an observer of the various games of chance and complexion. At Court, she knew as well as which he witnessed, he came, by degrees, by modeany lady in the circle, the precise tone, moral, politi-rate hazards, and small bets or wagers, to take a cal, learned, or jocose, in which it was proper to The condition of men of wit and talents was never more melancholy than about this period. Their lives were so irregular, and their means of living so precarious, that they were alternately rioting in debauchery, or encountering and struggling with the meanest necessities. Two or three lost their lives by a surfeit brought on by that fatal banquet of Rhenish wine and pickled herrings, which is familiar to those who study the light

er literature of that age. The whole history is a most melancholy picture of genius, degraded at once by its own debaucheries, and the patronage of heartless rakes and profligates.

certain interest in them. Nor could it be denied, that his rank and expectations entitled him to hazard a few pieces (for his game went no deeper) against persons, who, from the readiness with which they staked their money, might be supposed well able to afford to lose it.

belief, his evil genius had so decreed, that Nigel's adIt chanced, or, perhaps, according to the common ventures were remarkably successful. He was tem

THE FORTUNES OF NIGEL.

perate, cautious, cool-headed, had a strong memory, and a ready power of calculation; was besides, of a daring and intrepid character, one upon whom no one that had looked even slightly, or spoken to though but hastily, would readily have ventured to practise any thing approaching to trick, or which required to be supported by intimidation. While Lord Glenvarloch chose to play, men played with him regularly, or, according to the phrase, upon the square; and, as he found his luck change, or wished to hazard his good fortune no farther, the more professed votaries of fortune, who frequented the house of Monsieur le Chevalier de Saint Priest Beaujeu, did not venture openly to express their displeasure at his rising, a winner. But when this happened repeatedly, the gamesters murmured amongst themselves equally at the caution and the success of the young Scotsman; and he became far from being a popular character among their society.

It was no slight inducement to the continuance of this most evil habit, when it was once in some degree acquired, that it seemed to place Lord Glenvarloch, haughty as he naturally was, beyond the necessity of subjecting himself to farther pecuniary obligations, which his prolonged residence in London must otherwise have rendered necessary. He had to solicit from the ministers certain forms of office, which were to render his sign-manual effectually useful; and these, though they could not be denied, were delayed in such a manner, as to lead Nigel to believe there was some secret opposition, which occasioned the demur in his business. His own impulse was, to have appeared at Court a second time, with the King's sign-manual in his pocket, and to have appealed to his Majesty himself, whether the delay of the public officers ought to render his royal generosity unavailing. But the Lord Huntinglen, that good old peer, who had so frankly interfered in his behalf on a former occasion, and whom he occasionally visited, greatly dissuaded him from a similar adventure, and exhorted him quietly to await the deliverance of the ministers, which should set him free from dancing attendance in London.

[CHAP. XIII.

said Lord Dalgarno; "we have now no daily insur"O, the time permits not your old-world service," rections, no nightly attempts at assassination, as were the fashion in the Scottish Court. Your prompt and uncourteous sword-in-hand attendance on the Sovereign is no longer necessary, and would be as unbeseeming as your old-fashioned serving-men with their badges, broadswords, and bucklers, would be at a court-mask. Besides, father, loyal haste hath its inconveniences. I have heard, and from royal lips too, that when you struck your dagger into the traitor Ruthven, it was with such little consideration, that the point ran a quarter of an inch into the royal buttock. The King never talks of it but he rubs the injured part, and quotes his 'infandum----renovare dolorem.' But this comes of old fashions, and of wearing a long Liddesdale whinger instead of a poniard of Parma. Yet this, my dear father, you call could not sit upright for a fortnight, though all the prompt and valiant service. The King, I am told, cushions in Falkland were placed in his chair of state, and the Provost of Dunfermline's borrowed to the boot of all."

list!-It is true I wore a dagger of service by my side,
"It is a lie," said the old Earl, "a false lie, forge it who
and not a bodkin like yours, to pick one's teeth with-
al-and for prompt service-Odds nouns! it should be
prompt to be useful, when Kings are crying treason
and murder with the screech of a half-throttled hen.
But you young courtiers know nought of these mat-
ters, and are little better than the green geese they
bring over from the Indies, whose only merit to their
masters is to repeat their own words after them-
a pack of mouthers, and flatterers, and ear-wigs.
Well, I am old and unable to mend, else I would break
all off, and hear the Tay once more flinging himself
over the Campsie Lin."

Dalgarno, "which, if the venison I sent you prove
seasonable, is at least as sweet a sound."
"But there is your dinner-bell, father," said Lord

conversation was held, towards the house, followed
Follow me, then, youngsters, if you list," said the
old Earl; and strode on from the alcove in which this
by the two young men.

quor, of which he was more profuse than necessary,
were at the command of his young friend, as well as
As for the father, his table indeed, and his best li-
his best advice and assistance in the prosecution of
apparent than real; and the credit he had acquired
his affairs. But Lord Huntinglen's interest was more
by his gallant defence of the King's person, was so
carelessly managed by himself, and so easily eluded
by the favourites and ministers of the Sovereign,
that, except upon one or two occasions, when the
King was in some measure taken by surprise, as in
the case of Lord Glenvarloch, the royal bounty was
friends.
never efficiently extended, either to himself or to his

whose shrewder knowledge of the English Court
saw where his father's deficiency lay, "that had it
'There never was a man," said Lord Dalgarno,
the pinnacle of fortune as my poor father. He had
so perfectly in his power to have made his way to
acquired a right to build up the staircase, step by step,
slowly and surely, letting every boon, which he beg-
ged year after year, become in its turn the resting-
shall not shipwreck upon the same coast, Nigel," he
would conclude.
place for the next annual grant. But your fortunes

ence than my father has, or rather had, till he threw
them away for butts of sack, hawks, hounds, and
'If I have fewer means of influ-
such carrion, I can, far better than he, improve that
which I possess; and that, my dear Nigel, is all en-
gaged in your behalf. Do not be surprised or offend-

Why, I meant the phrase no otherwise, thou churlish and suspicious disputant," answered Dalgarno," than as I am now pleading the Duke's cause with thee. Surely I only mean to claim a share in our royal master's favourite benediction, Beati pacifici." Every body likes marks of personal attachment; Upon several occasions, Lord Glenvarloch's con- and Nigel, whose heart really smote him, as if in his versations, both with the old Earl and his son, took rising fortunes he were disdaining the lowly accoma similar turn and had a like conclusion. He some-modations and the civilities of the humble friends times felt as if, betwixt the one and the other, not to which had been but lately actual favours, failed not mention the more unseen and unboasted, but scarce by every assurance in his power, and by as liberal less certain influence of Lady Blackchester, his affair, payment as they could be prevailed upon to accept, simple as it had become, might have been somehow to alleviate the soreness of their feelings at his de accelerated. But it was equally impossible to doubt parture; and a parting kiss from the fair lips of his the rough honesty of the father, and the eager and hostess sealed his forgiveness. officious friendship of Lord Dalgarno; nor was it easy to suppose that the countenance of the lady, by whom he was received with such distinction, would be wanting, could it be effectual in his service.