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CHAPTER II.

News from England.

THE letters which Waverley had hitherto received from his relations in England, were not such as required any particular notice in this narrative. His father usually wrote to him with the pompous affectation of one who was too much oppressed by public affairs to find leisure to attend to those of his own family. Now and then he mentioned persons of rank in Scotland to whom he could wish his son should pay some attention; but Waverley, hitherto occupied by the amusements which he had found at Tully Veolan and Glenna-quoich, dispensed with paying any attention to hints so coldly thrown out, especially as distance, shortness of leave of

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absence, and so forth, furnished a ready apology. But, latterly, the burthen of Mr Richard Waverley's paternal epistles consisted in certain mysterious hints of greatness and influence which he was speedily to attain, and which would insure his son's obtaining the most rapid promotion, should he remain in the military service. Sir Everard's letters were of a different tenor. They were short; for the good Baronet was none of your illimitable corre spondents whose manuscript overflows the folds of their large post paper, and leaves no room for the seal; but they were kind and affectionate, and seldom concluded: without some allusion to our hero's steed, some question about the state of his purse, and a special enquiry after such of his recruits as had preceded him from WaverleyHonour. Aunt, Rachael charged him to remember his principles of religion, to take care of his health, to beware of Scotch

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mists, which, she had heard, would, wet an Englishman to the skins never to go

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out at night without his great-coat; and, above all, skin.] to wear flannel near. -"Mr Pembroke only wrote to our hero one letter, but it was of the bulk of six of's epistles of these degenerate days, containing, in the moderate compass of ten folio pages, closely written, a precis of a supplementary quarto manuscript of addenda, delenda, et corrigenda, in reference to the two tracts with which he had presented Waverley. This he considered as a mere sop in the pan to stay the appetite of Edward's curiosity, until he should find an opportunity of sending down the volume itself, which was much too heavy for the post, and which he proposed to accompany with certain ain interesting pamphlets, lately published by his friend in friend in Little Britain, with whom he had kept up a sort of lit Tary 'correspondence, in virtue of which the library shelves of Waverley-Honour were loaded with much trash, and a good round bill, seldom summed in fewer than three figures, was yearly transmitted, in

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which Sir Everard Waverley of WaverleyHonour, Bart.3 was marked Dr. to Jona than Grubbety bookseller and stationer, Little Britaine Such had hitherto been the style of the letters which Edward had received from England; but the packet delivered to him at Glennaquoich was of a different and more interestingscomplexion. It would be impossible for the reader, even were I to insert the letters at full length, to comprehend the real cause of their being written, without a glance into the interior of the British Cabinet at the period in question. 203 3201w beThe ministers of the day happened (no very singular event) to be divided into two parties; the weakest of which, making up by assiduity of intrigue their inferiority in real consequence, had of date acquired some new proselytes, and with them the hope of superseding their rivals in the favour of the sovereign, and overpowering them in the House of Commons. Amongst others, they had thought

it worthwhile to practise upon Richard Waverley. This honest gentleman, byl a grave mysterious demeanour, an attention to the etiquette of business, as well as to its essence, a facility in making long dull speeches, consisting of truisms and common places, hashed up with a technical jargon of office, which prevented the inanity of his orations from being discovered, acquired a certain name and credit in public life, and even established, with anany, the character of a profound politiscian; none of your shining orators, indeed, whose talents evaporate in tropes of rheetoric and flashes of wit, but one possessed of steady parts for business, which would wear well, as the ladies say in chusing -theirǝ silks, gand ought in all reason to be good for common and every-day use, since they were confessedly formed of no holi¿day textureasquete od odt modt

This faith had become so general, that -the party in the cabinet of which we have

made mention, after sounding Mr Richard

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