How Frenchy—how intensely French! mass in the morning, and weeping and sighing,—a revel before nightfall, and desperate gaming. And this man to be the Cromwell of the commonwealth? He could hardly have been the Milton, though it would have been more becoming. And what will be his career? It is a pity Lady Hester Stanhope was not permitted to consult his stars in full when he met her on Mount Lebanon, when she praised his handsome foot and arched instep, and told him he should be very important in the history of the world. Ah, how certainly he will yet lament, if he does not lament already, the fulfilment of the oracle! Such weird sisters as Lady Hester generally tell only half, leaving the rest to imagination and to time. But whether this Phaeton, who has grasped the reins, is to set the world on fire; whether he, in turn, is only to try the game of Humpty-Dumpty and to fall; or whether, even as I write this, he be not already under the foot of Louis Blanc and his Communistes,—what probabilities or improbabilities shall aid my conjecture? This thing only will I venture as my surmise, though not my hope, that kings shall reign again in France, as if Lamartine never lived: that tricoloured cockades shall be made no more, and lilies be cultivated again: that there will soon be longings for a sight of the drapeau blanc, and a prince of the sons of St Louis: and that, fat as he is, and Bourbon as he is, and half Austrian as he has made himself, Henry Duke of Bordeaux will soon be known as Henri le Désiré.
Yours ever, my dear Basil,
Ernest.
THE CAXTONS—PART IV.
CHAPTER IX.
I was always an early riser. Happy the man who is! Every morning, day comes to him with a virgin's love, full of bloom, and purity, and freshness. The youth of nature is contagious, like the gladness of a happy child. I doubt if any man can be called 'old' so long as he is an early riser, and an early walker. And oh, youth!—take my word of it,—youth in dressing-gown and slippers, dawdling over breakfast at noon, is a very decrepid ghastly image of that youth which sees the sun blush over the mountains, and the dews sparkle upon blossoming hedgerows.
Passing by my father's study, I was surprised to see the windows unclosed—surprised more, on looking in, to see him bending over his books—for I had never before known him study till after the morning meal. Students are not usually early risers, for students, alas! whatever their age, are rarely young. Yes; the great work must be getting on in serious earnest. It was no longer dalliance with learning: this was work.
I passed through the gates into the road. A few of the cottages were giving signs of returning life; but it was not yet the hour for labour, and no "Good morning, sir," greeted me on the road. Suddenly at a turn, which an overhanging beech-tree had before concealed, I came full upon my Uncle Roland.