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"This is for you, Colonel," said he; "it was marked immediate,' and the post-mistress despatched it by express."

The letter was a very brief one; but, in honor to the writer, we shall give it a chapter to itself.

CHAPTER VII.

A GREAT DIPLOMATIST.

there; he rows with a short jerking stroke ally preferring, the society of men beneath there's no timing. That's himself, and it must him. In person he was tall, and with that air be something urgent from the post-office that of distinction in his manner that belongs only brings him over the Lough to-night." to those who unite natural graces with long The words were scarcely spoken when Craggs habits of high society. His features were finely entered with a letter in his hand. formed, and would have been actually handsome, were the expression not spoiled by a look of astuteness-a something that implied a tendency to overreach-which marred their repose and injured their uniformity. Not that his manner ever betrayed this weakness; far from it-his was a most polished courtesy. It was impossible to conceive an address more bland or more conciliating. His very gestures, vis voice, languid by a slight habit of indispo sition, seemed as though exerted above their "MY DEAR HARCOURT,-I arrived here strength in the desire to please, and making yesterday, and by good fortune caught your the object of his attentions to feel himself the letter at the F. O., where it was awaiting mark of peculiar honor. There ran through all the departure of the messenger for Germany. his nature, through everything he did, or said, "Your account of poor Glencore is most dis-or thought, a certain haughty humility, which tressing. At the same time, my knowledge of served, while it assigned an humble place to the man and his temper in a measure prepared himself, to mark out one still more humble for me for it. You say that he wished to see me, those about him. There were not many things and intends to write. Now there is a small he could not do; indeed he had actually done business matter between us, which his lawyer most of those which win honor and distinction seems much disposed to push on to a difficulty, in life. He had achieved a very gallant but if not to worse. To prevent this, if possible, at all events to see whether a visit from me might not be serviceable, I shall cross over to Ireland on Tuesday, and be with you by Friday, or at furthest Saturday. Tell him that I am coming, but only for a day. My engagements are such that I must be here again early in the following week. On Thursday I go down to Windsor.

brief military career in India, made a most brilliant opening in Parliament, where his abilities at once marked him out for office, was suspected to be the writer of the cleverest political satire, and more than suspected to be the author of the novel of the day. With all this, he had great social success. He was deep enough for a ministerial dinner, and "fast enough for a party of young Guardsmen at "There is wonderfully little stirring here, Greenwich. With women, too, he was espebut I keep that little for our meeting. You cially a favorite; there was a Machiavellian are aware, my dear friend, what a poor, shat- subtlety which he could throw into small things tered, broken-down fellow I am; so that I-a mode of making the veriest trifles, little need not ask you to give me a comfortable quarter for one night, and some shell-fish, if easily procurable, for my one dinner. Yours, ever and faithfully,

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"H. U."

Chinese puzzles of ingenuity that flattered and amused them. In a word, he had great adaptiveness, and it was a quality he indulged less for the gratification of others than for the pleasure it afforded himself.

He had mixed largely in society, not only We have already told our reader that the of his own, but of every country of Europe. note was a brief one, and yet was it not alto- He knew every chord of that complex instrugether uncharacteristic. Sir Horace Upton-ment which people call the world, like a masit will spare us both some repetition if we pre-ter; and although a certain jaded and wearied sent him at once-was one of a very composite look, a tone of exhaustion and fatigue, seemed order of human architecture; a kind of being, to say that he was tired of it all, that he had in fact, of which many would deny the existence till they met and knew them, so full of contradictions, real and apparent, was his nature. Chivalrous in sentiment and cunning in action, noble in aspiration, and utterly sceptical as to such a thing as principal, one-half of his temperament was the antidote to the other. Fastidious to a painful extent in matters of taste, he was simplicity itself in all the requirements of his life, and with all a courtier's love of great people, not only tolerating, but actuDXCIII. LIVING AGE. VOL. XI. 4

found it barren and worthless, the real truth was, he enjoyed life to the full as much as on the first day in which he entered it; and for this simple reason, that he had started with an humble opinion of mankind, their hopes, fears, and ambitions, and so he continued, not disappointed, to the end.

The most governing notion of his whole life was an impression that he had a disease of the chest, some subtle and mysterious affection which had defied the doctors, and would

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go on to defy them to the last. To suggest to besides, I've seen a great deal of Upton, and him that his malady had any affinity to any with all his fastidiousness and refinement, he's known affection was to outrage him, since the a thorough good fellow at taking things for the Invite him to Chatsworth, and the mere supposition would reduce him to a spe- best. cies of equality with some one else-a thought chances are he'll find twenty things to faultinfinitely worse than any mere physical suf- with the place, the cookery, and the servants; fering; and, indeed, to avoid this shocking but take him down to the Highlands, lodge possibility, he vacillated as to the locality of him in a shieling, with bannocks for breakfast his disorder, making it now in the lung, now and a Fyne herring for supper, and I'll wager in the heart at one time in the bronchial my life you'll not see a ruffle in his temper, tubes, at another in the valves of the aorta. It nor hear a word of impatience out of his was his pleasure to consult for this complaint every great physician of Europe, and not alone consult, but commit himself to their direction, and this with a credulty which he could scarcely have summoned in any other

cause.

It was difficult to say how far he himself believed in this disorder-the pressure of any momentous event, the necessity of action, never finding him unequal to any effort, no Give him a difficulty, a matter how onerous. minister to outwit, a secret scheme to unravel, a false move to profit by, and he rose above all his pulmonary symptoms, and could exert himself with a degree of power and perseverance that very few men could equal, none surpass. Indeed it seemed as though he kept this malady for the pastime of idle hours, as other men do a novel or a newspaper, but would never permit it to interfere with the graver business of life.

We have, perhaps, been prolix in our description, but we have felt it the more requisite to be thus diffuse, since the studious simplicity which marked all his manner might have deceived our reader, and which the impression of his mere words have failed to convey.

"You will be glad to hear Upton is in Enggland, Glencore," said Harcourt, as the sick man was assisted to his seat in the library, "and, what is more, intends to pay you a visit."

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Upton coming here!" exclaimed Glencore, with an expression of mingled astonishment and confusion-"how do you know that?" "He writes me from Long's to say that he'll be with us by Friday, or, if not, by Saturday."

"What a miserable place to receive him," exclaimed Glencore. "As for you, Harcourt, you know how to rough it, and have bivouacked too often under the stars to care much for satin curtains. But think of Upton here! How is he to eat?-where is he to sleep?"

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By Jove, we'll treat him handsomely.
Don't you fret yourself about his comforts;|

mouth."

"I know that he is a well-bred gentleman,” said Glencore, half pettishly; "but I have no fancy for putting his good manners to a severe test, particularly at the cost of my own feelings."

"I tell you again he shall be admirably treated; he shall have my room; and, as for his dinner, Master Billy and I are going to make a raid amongst the lobster-pots. And what with turbot, oysters, grouse-pie, and mountain mutton, I'll make the diplomatist sorrow that he is not accredited to some native sovereign in the Arran islands, instead of some 'mere German Hertzog.' He can only stay one day."

"One day!"

"That's all; he is over head-and-ears in business, and he goes down to Windsor on Thursday, so that there is no help for it."

"I wish I may be strong enough; I hope to heaven that I may rally-" Glencore stopped suddenly as he got thus far, but the agitation the words cost him seemed most painful.

"I say again, don't distress yourself about Upton-leave the care of entertaining him to

me.

I'll vouch for it that he leaves us well satisfied with his welcome."

"It was not of that I was thinking," said he, impatiently; "I have much to say to him things of great importance. It may be that I shall be unequal to the effort; I cannot answer for my strength for a day-not for an Could you not write to him, and ask hour. him to defer his coming till such time as he a week, or at least some can spare me days?"

My dear Glencore, you know the man well, and that we are lucky if we can have him here on his own terms, not to think of imposing ours; he is sure to have a number of engagements while he is in England."

"Well, be it so," said Glencore, sighing, with the air of a man resigning himself to an inevitable necessity.

From Blackwood's Magazine.
MAUD.

BY ALFRED TENNYSON.*

the primest quality, men have grown shy through frequent disappointment, and will not allow themselves to be seduced into anticipa tory ecstasies even by the most tempting bill WE are old enough to remember the time of fare. When every possible kind of publiwhen the bare announcement of a new poem cation-from the lumbering journals and salafrom the pen of Byron, or of a new romance cious court-gossip of some antiquated patrician from that of Scott, was sufficient to send a pantaloon, edited by his senseless son, down to thrill of curiosity and expectation through the the last History of the Highway, with sketches whole body of the public. No ingenious news- of eminent burglars-from the play after the paper puffs, containing hints as to the nature perusal of which in manuscript Mr. Macready and tone of the forthcoming production, were was attacked by British cholera, down to the then required to stimulate the jaded appetite, poem so very spasmodic that it reminds you and prepare it for the enjoyment of the pro- of the writhing of a knot of worms-from aumised feast. Gluttons all of us, we had hard-dacious, though most contemptible forgeries on ly devoured one dish fit for a banquet of the the dead, down to the autobiography of a gods, before we were ready for another; and rogue and a swindler-is represented as "a it needed not the note of lute or psaltery, work of surpassing interest, full of genius, calsackbut or dulcimer, to induce us to pounce, culated to make a lasting impression on the ravenous as eagles, upon the coming prey. public mind," and so forth, can it be wonderSome selfishness undoubtedly there was; for ed at if the public has long ago lost faith in we have known desperate, and even demoni- such announcements? It would be as casy to acal struggles take place for the possession of induce a pack of fox-hounds to follow a trail an early copy. The mail-coach which was through the town of Wick in the herring seasupposed to carry one or more of these pre-son, as to allure purchasers by dint of this incious parcels a week or so before the general discriminate system of laudation. delivery, was in much greater danger of being Yet we deny not that at times we feel a restopped and plundered than if the boot had currence of the old fever-fit of expectation. been stuffed with boxes containing the laminous The advertisement of a forth-coming novel by issue of the Bank of England. One ancient Sir E. B. Lytton would excite in the bosoms guard, well known to travellers on the north of many of us sensations similar to those which road for his civility to passengers and his ad- agitate a Junior Lord of the Treasury at the miration of rum and milk, used to exhibit a near approach of quarter-day. If we could lump behind his ear, about the size of a only be assured of the exact time when Mr. magnum bonum plum, arising from an injury Macaulay's new volumes are to appear, we caused by the pistol of a literary footpad, who might, even now, forgive him for having kept attacked the mail near Alnwick for the pur- us so long upon the tenter-hooks. Let Lord pose of obtaining forcible possession of a Palmerston fix a precise day for the issue of proof copy of Rob Roy. Judges were known his Life and Political Reminiscences, and we to have absented themselves from the bench gage our credit that, before dawn, the doors of for the undisturbed engorgement, and for his publisher will be besieged; and, to come weeks afterwards the legal opinions which they to the immediate subject of this article, we delivered were strangely studded with media- have been waiting for a long time, with deep val ternis. As for the poetical apprentices, anxiety, for the promised new volume of poByron was, indeed, the very prince of the ems by Alfred Tennyson. The young cormoflat-caps. No sooner was a fresh work of his rant, whom from our study window we see announced, than opium and prussic acid rose sitting upon a rock in the voe, was an egg on rapidly in the market; and the joyous tidings a ledge of the cliff when we first heard whisof some new harlotry by Mr. Thomas Moore per that the Laureate was again preparing to created a fluttering as of besmirched doves sing. The early daisies were then starring among the delicate damsels of Drury Lane. the sward, and the primroses blooming on the All that, however, is matter of history, for bank; and now the poppies are red amongst the world since then has become, if not wiser, the corn, and the corn itself yellowing into much more callous and indifferent. We have harvest. Post after post arrived, and yet they been fed for a long time upon adulterated vi- brought not Maud-a sore disappointment to ands, and have grown mightily suspicious of us, for we are dwelling in the land of the Niethe sauce. Since the literary caterers, with belungen, where, Providence be praised, there very few exceptions, betook themselves to are no railways, and cheap literature is depuffing, and to the dubious task of represent-liciously scarce-so we fell back upon Tening garbage only fit for cat's-meat, as pieces of nyson's earlier poems, solaced ourselves with

*Maud and other Poems. By Alfred Tennyson, D.C.L., Poet Laureate. London, 1855.

the glorious rhythm of Locksley Hall and the Morte D'Arthur, lay among the purple heather, and read Ulysses and the Lotus-eaters, and

to be a viscount one of these days; and some- had nothing but misgivings. Harcourt would how, wherever he has picked it up, he has have twenty times a day wounded the feelgot a very pretty notion of the importance ings, or jarred against the susceptibility of his and rank that same title confers."

best friend; Upton could not be brought to trench upon the slightest prejudice of his greatest enemy. We might continue this contrast to every detail of their characters, but enough has now been said, and we proceed to the letter in question :—

"Glencore Castle.

"Let us not speak of this now, Harcourt; I'm far too weak to enter upon what it would lead to. It is, however, the great reason for which I entreated you to come here. And tomorrow at all events in a day or two-we can speak of it fully. And now I must leave you. You'll have to rough it here, George; but as there is no man can do so with a better "DEAR UPTON,-True to my promise to grace, I can spare my apologies; only, I beg, give you early tidings of our old friend, I sit don't let the place be worse than it need be. down to pen a few lines, which, if a rickety Give your orders; get what you can; and see table and some infernal lampblack for ink if your tact and knowledge of life cannot should make illegible, you'll have to wait for remedy many a difficulty which our ignorance the elucidation till my arrival. I found Glenor apathy have served to perpetuate. core terribly altered; I'd not have known "I'll take the command of the garrison with him. He used to be muscular and rather full pleasure," said Harcourt, filling up his glass, in habit; he is now a mere skeleton. His and replenishing the fire. "And now a good hair and moustache were coal black; they are night's rest to you, for I half suspect I have a motley gray. He was straight as an arrowalready jeopardied some of it.” pretentiously erect, many thought; he is stoopThe old campaigner sat till long past mid-ed now, and bent nearly double. His voice, night. The generous wine, his pipe, the too, the most clear and ringing in the squadcheerful wood-fire, were all companionable ron, is become a hoarse whisper. You reenough, and well-suited thoughts which took member what a passion he had for dress, and no high or heroic range, but were chiefly reveries of the past, some sad, some pleasant, but all tinged with the one philosophy, which made him regard the world as a campaign, wherein he who grumbles or repines is but a sorry soldier, and unworthy of his cloth.

It was not till the last glass was drained that he arose to seek his bed, and pleasantly humming some old air to himself, he slowly mounted the stairs to his chamber.

CHAPTER V.

COLONEL HARCOURT'S LETTER.

As we desire throughout this tale to make the actors themselves, wherever it be possible, the narrators, using their words in preference to our own, we shall now place before the reader a letter written by Colonel Harcourt about a week after his arrival at Glencore, which will at least serve to rescue him and ourselves from the task of repetition.

how heartily we all deplored the chance of his being colonel, well knowing what precious caprices of costly costume would be the consequence. Well, a discharged corporal, in a cast-off mufti, is stylish compared to him. I don't think he has a hat-I have only seen an oilskin cap; but his coat, his one coat, is a curiosity of industrious patch-work; and his trowsers are a pair of our old overalls, the same pattern we wore at Hounslow when the king reviewed us.

"Great as these changes are, they are nothing to the alteration in the poor fellow's disposition. He that was generous to munificence, is now an absolute miser, descending to the most pitiful economy, and moaning over every trifling outlay. He is irritable, too, to a degree. Far from the jolly, light-hearted comrade, ready to join in the laugh against himself, and enjoy a jest of which he was the object, he suspects a slight in every allusion, and bristles up to resent a mere familiarity, as though it were an insult.

It was addressed to Sir Horace Upton, Her Majesty's Envoy at Studtgard, one who had "Of course I put much of this down to the formerly served in the same regiment with score of illness, and of bad health before he Glencore and himself, but who left the army was so ill; but, depend upon it, he's not the early, to follow the career of diplomacy where- man we knew him; heaven knows if he ever in, still a young man, he had risen to the rank will be so again. The night I arrived here he of a minister. It is not important to the ob- was more natural-more like himself, in fact, ject of our story to speak more particularly than he has ever been since. His manner of his character, than that it was in almost was heartier, and in his welcome there was a every respect the opposite of his correspond- touch of the old jovial good fellow, who never ent. Where the one was frank, open, and was so happy as when sharing his quarters unguarded, the other was cold, cautious and with a comrade. Since that he has grown reserved; where one believed, the other punctilious, anxiously asking me if I am comdoubted; where one was hopeful, the other fortable, and teasing me with apologies for

what I don't miss, and excuses about things somewhat haughty, perhaps; a little spoiled that I should never have discovered wanting. by the country people calling him the young "I think I see what is passing within him; lord; but a generous fellow, and very like he wants to be confidential, and he doesn't Glencore, when he first joined us at Canterknow how to go about it. I suppose he looks bury. By way of educating him himself, on me as rather a rough father to confess Glencore has been driving Virgil and decimal to; he isn't quite sure what kind of sympathy, fractions into him; and the boy, bred in the if any, he'll meet with from me, and he more country-never out of it for a day-can't load than half dreads a certain careless, out-spoken a gun or tie a tackle. Not the worst thing way in which I have now and then addressed his boy, of whom more anon.

last.

about the boy is his inordinate love for Glencore, whom he imagines to be about the great"I may be right, or I may be wrong, in est and most gifted being that ever lived. I this conjecture; but certain it is that nothing can scarcely help smiling at the implicitness of like confidential conversation has yet passed this honest faith; but I take good care not to between us, and each day seems to render the smile; on the contrary, I give every possible prospect of such only less and less likely. I encouragement to the belief. I conclude the wish from my heart you were here; you are disenchantment will arrive only too early at just the fellow to suit him-just calculated to nourish the susceptibilities that I only shock. "You'll not know what to make of such a I said as much t'other day, in a half-careless lengthy epistle from me, and you'll doubtless way, and he immediately caught it up, and torture that fine diplomatic intelligence of said "Ay, George, Upton is a man one wants yours to detect the secret motive of my longnow and then in life, and when the moment windedness; but the simple fact is, it has comes, there is no such thing as a substitute for him." In a joking manner, I then remarked, "Why not come over to see him?" "Leave this!" cried he; "venture into the world again; expose myself to its brutal insolence, or still more brutal pity!" In a torrent of passion, he went on in this strain, till I heartily regretted that I had ever touched this unlucky topic.

"I date his greatest reserve from that same moment; and I am sure he is disposed to connect me with the casual suggestion to go over to Studtgard, and deems me, in consequence, one utterly deficient in all true feeling and delicacy.

rained incessantly for the last three days, and promises the same cheering weather for as many more. Glencore doesn't fancy that the boy's lessons should be broken in upon-and hinc ista litera-that's classical for you.

"I wish I could say when I am likely to beat my retreat. I'd stay-not very willingly, perhaps but still I'd stay, if I thought myself of any use; but I cannot persuade myself that I am such. Glencore is now about again, feeble of course, and much pulled down, but able to go about the house and the garden. I can contribute nothing to his recovery, and I fear as little to his comfort. I even doubt if he desires me to prolong my visit; but such is "I needn't tell you that my stay here is the my fear of offending him, that I actually dread reverse of a pleasure. I'm never, what fine to allude to my departure, till I can sound my people call, bored anywhere; and I could way as to how he'll take it. This fact alone amuse myself gloriously in this queer spot. I will show you how much he is changed from have shot some half dozen seals, hooked the the Glencore of long ago. Another feature in heaviest salmon I ever saw rise to a fly, and him, totally unlike his former self, struck me have had rare coursing, not to say that Glen- the other evening. We were talking of old core's table, with certain reforms I have intro-messmates-Croydon, Stanhope, Loftus, and duced, is very tolerable, and his cellar unim-yourself-and instead of dwelling, as he once peachable. I'll back his chambertin against would have done, exclusively on your traits of your excellency's; and I have discovered a character and disposition, he discussed nothing bin of red hermitage that would convert a but your abilities, and the capacity by which whole vineyard of the smallest Lafitte into you could win your way to honors and distincSneyd's claret; but with all these seductions, tion. I needn't say how, in such a valuation, I can't stand the life of continued constraint you came off best. Indeed he professes the I'm reduced to. Glencore evidently sent for highest esteem for your talents, and says, me to make some revelations, which, now that "You'll see Upton either a cabinet minister or he sees me, he cannot accomplish. For aught ambassador at Paris yet;" and this he repeated I know, there may be as many changes in me in the same words last night, as if to show it to his eyes, as to mine there are in him. I was not dropped as a mere random observaonly can vouch for it, that if I ride three tion. stone heavier, I haven't the worse place, and "I have some scruples about venturing to I don't detect any striking falling off in my offer anything bordering a suggestion to a appreciation of good fare and good fellows. great and wily diplomatist like yourself; but I spoke of the boy: he is a fine lad-if an illustrious framer of treaties and protocols

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