'Hast thou, though suckled at fair Freedom's breast,
Exported slavery to the conquered East?

Pulled down the tyrants India served with dread,
And raised thyself a greater in their stead?
Gone thither armed and hungry, returned full,
Fed from the richest veins of the Mogul,
A despot big with power, obtained by wealth,
And that obtained by rapine and by stealth?'

"Hastings can read no farther. This passage could not, did not apply to himself; in his proud integrity of heart he felt assured of this. The opinions too were those of ignorance. What could Cowper know of the east? And then he wonders at the latitude of discussion, and the licentiousness of the press in England. He dips again; his fortune may be better this time; for in these rich volumes he perceives that there is much poetic beauty. He is more fortunate now, for he opens at the admired description of the coming in of the post. How fine an opening; and he reads aloud

But oh the important budget! ushered in
With such heart-shaking music, who can say
What are its tidings ?-have our troops awaked?
Or do they still, as if with opium drugged,
Snore to the murmurs of the Atlantic wave?
IS INDIA FREE? and does she wear her plumed
And jewelled turban with a smile of peace,
Or do we grind her still ?'—————

"The heart-struck but fascinated reader proceeds on, in spite of himself, till he finishes the finest passages of the poem, those which unveil the habits and amiable character of his early friend. If there were some stir and bitterness in his spirit on the first perusal of offensive strictures, that is past now. He lays down the book with a quiet sigh; and, striving to fix his mind upon all that has been most brilliant in his fortunes, can only remember how many years have elapsed since he was a Westminster school-boy; and that both he and William Cowper have long since passed the meridian of life.

"Are you not yet tired, Miss Fanny, of gazing on that gorgeous bed-chamber, said the curate; "the bed of carved ivory and gold, the silken draperies, and couches of crimson and gold curiously worked; the silver-framed mirrors, the rich porcelain vases and footbaths; the splendid toilette, with its jewelled ornaments; the ivory and ebony cabinets, richly inlaid with gold, and in the highest style of eastern decoration, exhibiting groups exquisitely executed; religious processions, festivals, marriages, in short, a series of gorgeous pictures of eastern manners. Those caskets on the toilette contain

some of the rarest jewels of the east. That large emerald is to be sent to-morrow morning to a certain lady of questionable fame, but of great influence; for the proud Hastings must stoop to make friends, at this crisis, by arts he would once have spurned, and still loathes. That gold bed, preserved with such care in his own chamber, is intended for a gift or tribute to the Queen of England.”

The children were not yet satisfied with gazing; and Mrs Herbert said, "I fear, my dears, if thus fascinated by grandeur, you will ill bear a transition to the dull, low-roofed parlour at Olney." "No: were it a dungeon with such inmates," cried Sophia, resolutely turning from the beautiful picture of the interior of Mr Hastings' bedchamber." Well said, Sophia, if you can stand to it," returned her mother-" But I see Charles and Mr Norman long for another peep of those Eastern weapons suspended over the chimney."—"That most beautiful scimitar, the handle studded and blazing with jewels!" cried the peeping boy,-" and those exquisite pistols! how was it possible to paint them so truly? And that-Damascus blade, did you call it ?"

"Lest the transition to sad, sombre, puritanic Olney, be too violent, we will first, if you please, visit the lord chancellor,” said Mr Dodsley." Presto! there he is at the head of the state councilboard; these are his colleagues-his party friends, his rivals, his flatterers, his underminers, ranged on each side of him; and he knows them all well they may injure, but they cannot deceive him. He looks grim, and stern, and unhealthy. Even now there is spasm upon him; a youth of hard sedentary study, a manhood of incessant labour, and latterly, a weight of public and of private cares, have weighed and broken down lord Thurlow. He looks old before his time. His temper, even his friends allow, has become rugged, boisterous, arrogant,-almost brutal. But they know not the secret pangs that torture him, or they might bear with patience, or pardon with gentleness, those fierce ebullitions of rage that will not acknowledge sickness nor infirmity. Even in the death-gripe, he will clutch those magic seals. But now he presides at that board, where the subject of discussion is the glory and safety of the empire,-the weal or wo of millions yet unborn. If the feeling of bodily languor for an instant overpower his intellectual energies, alarmed ambition stings his mind into preternatural strength, for he penetrates the arts of a wily rival, who, affecting to acquiesce in his measures, secretly labours to thwart them, and to undermine him in the favour and confidence of his sovereign. He puts forth all his strength, tramples the reptile in the dust, and seats himself at the head of empire more firmly and securely than ever. Is he happy now? He thinks he should be so, but he thinks little of it; he has leisure for nothing, heart for no

thing, memory for nothing, save his high function, and the arts necessary to maintain himself in it. He has no time, and indeed no wish to ascertain his own state either of body or mind. If he has no leisure to attend to his health, how can he be supposed to have time for self-examination, or for serious thought. He once had many schemes, the growth of his strong and even enlarged mind, for the welfare of the state, and the happiness of his old private friends,but they must be delayed. And now he loses even the wish for their accomplishment; his heart, never either very kind or soft, has become narrowed as well as callous; his temper waxes more and more hard, and gloomy, and repulsive; his private friends fall off, disgusted by his neglect, and surly, arrogant haughtiness. They have no longer any common sympathies with Edward, lord Thurlow. He stalks through his magnificent house alone; he writes,▾ rases, burns, knits his brows over communications and despatches which offended him, and many things offend him, he sits up half the night plunged in business; the surgeon who of late sleeps in his house administers a sleeping draught, and he will try to obtain a few hours of troubled repose. Had pride allowed him, he could almost have addressed the obsequious medical man in the well-remembered words of Macbeth,

• Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased?'

Many, many years ago, he had seen Garrick play that character and many others, when William Cowper, of the Inner Temple, was his companion to Drury Lane. They had spouted the favourite passages together fifty times, after returning home to sup, now in Cowper's chambers, now in Thurlow's. Of rhetoric and declamation Edward Thurlow was ever an admirer; young Cowper relished more the intense passion, or the deep pathos of the scene.

"The memory of his old fellow-student and companion had been revived on this night, by the arrival of a volume, just published, of Cowper's poetry. With a feeling bordering on contempt, Lord Thurlow threw it from him unopened. Now another scene of our inagic glass, and behold the high chancellor lays his throbbing but ever clear head on a downy pillow, and sets his alarum-watch to an early hour; for, sick or well, he must be at Windsor by ten to morrow. He, however, leaves orders, that at whatever hour his private secretary, who is waiting the issue of an important debate in the house of commons, shall return, he be admitted to him;-Lord Thurlow has an impression, that, though he may stretch his limbs on that bed of state, sleep will not visit him till he learn the fortune of the day-hears how the vote has gone. It was a debate on the Afri

He

can slave-trade. He first inquired the vote-it was favourable. glanced over the reports of the leading speeches:-the vote was his, -but the feeling, the spirit of the night was strongly against him. There was the speech of Charles Fox; and he had quoted Cowper! -a beautiful apostrophe to Freedom, cheered by all the members on both sides of the house, forced to admire, vote afterwards as they might.

"Lord Thurlow now sets himself to sleep in good earnest, and his strong will is omnipotent even here. But over the empire of dreams the lord high chancellor had no power,-Fancy is not a ward of chancery. His visions were gloomy and distempered. His youth, his manhood, his present life are all fantastically, but vividly blended. Sometimes the spirit that haunts him is the Prince of Wales, then it becomes Charles Fox, and anon it changes to William Cowper, and again back to Fox. But his hour comes, the alarum wakes him, and he is almost glad of the relief."

"Would you choose to see the chancellor's dressing-room, Fanny, and his anti-chamber, and the persons met in levee there, thus early, in a chill, foggy, winter's morning?" Fanny chose to do so.

And there was seen the plain chamber of the English minister, lights burning dimly in the cold, heavy air,-a fire choked with smoke.

"Ah, poor old gentleman," cried Fanny, "there he is, so cold, I am sure, and so very cross he looks,-the poor servant that shaves him looks so terribly frightened. Well, considering how late he was of getting to bed, and all, I don't think, brother George, it is very pleasant to be a high chancellor at least in winter; particularly when the king wishes to see him so early at Windsor, to scold him perhaps."

66 'O, you silly child," said her sister.

"Not so silly, Miss Sophia," said the curate. "To be sure, there is no great hardship visible here, still I could have wished the lord chancellor a longer and sounder sleep; and it is very wise, Fanny, to learn young, that all is not gold which glitters.' But now we shall suppose the chancellor shaved and booted, his hasty cup of coffee swallowed as the Jews did the Passover-standing, his loins girt; for he too is bound for the wilderness. In short, he detests Windsor interviews. A secretary bears his portfolio; his carriage is at the door; he hurries through the circle of adulators, solicitors of his patronage, understrappers of all kinds, that wait his appearance,-the whole herd hateful to him, and he to them; and he is not a man of glozing words or feigning courtesy. No man in England can say 'No' more gruffly or decidedly. A few indispensable words uttered, he hurries on.

Near the door you note a young clergyman, his fine

features' sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought.' His profile strikingly resembles that of William Cowper, and lord Thurlow recalls his dream, and Charles Fox's quotation; and, with his old accurate Temple habits, takes the port-folio himself, and directs his secretary to return and bring him a volume lying on the third shelf of a certain cabinet in his business-room, between a pamphlet on India affairs, and that something about Lord George Gordon.' He now perfectly recollected-for his memory was tenacious of every thing-that Cowper had lost his paltry sort of appointment-had gone deranged was always swainish, and now piped in some rural shades or other, sunk into nobody, with probably not political interest sufficient to influence the election of the neighbouring borough-reeve. There had been a degree of impertinence in sending such a book to him; or it was, at least, an act of silliness, and showed small knowledge of life. But Fox had quoted it; so once beyond the smoke of London, Thurlow turns over the leaves. The carriage rolls on, post-haste, to the audience of Majesty; but habit has enabled the lord chancellor to read even in the most rapid whirling motion. He dips at random in search of Fox's passage, and stumbles on that splendid one- All flesh is grass.' 'Cowper should have been in the church,' thought he; 'a dignified churchman he is unfit for, but he might have made a tolerable parish priest, if he would steer clear of Methodistical nonsense.'-He dips again-One sheltered hare;' whining stuff! or is he mad still?' His eye falls on that passage beginning- How various his employments whom the world calls idle;' and he reads on, not with the natural feelings of Hastings, but yet not wholly unmoved, till he gets to the words, Sipping calm the fragrant lymph which neatly she prepares,' when, throwing down the book, the man, strong in the spirit of this world's wisdom, mutters to himself, piperly trash!-and is it this Charles Fox quotes? The devil quotes scripture for his use, and Fox would quote the devil for his.' Lord Thurlow then plunges into that red port-folio which engrosses so much of his time-so much of his soul.

"And now the proud keep of Windsor' rises on the ambitious, and prosperous, and proud statesman:-he smooths his brow; his sovereign welcomes him graciously; his audience passes off well; he hastens back to London, where a thousand affairs await to occupy and torture though they cannot distract him. He snatches a morsel of cold meat; swallows a glass of wine: and off to the house of peers, to be baited for six long hours by the bulldogs of Opposition."

"And what has the poor gentleman for all this?" said little Fanny. "I am sure he has hard work of it."

"How idly you do talk, Fanny; is he not lord chancellor of England?" cried her sister.