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 Glennaquoich, dispensed with paying any attention to hints so coldly thrown out, especially as distance, shortness of leave of 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

J.

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 correspondents 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 inquiry after such of his recruits as had preceded him from Waverley-Honour. Aunt Rachael charged him to remember his principles of religion, to take care of his health, to beware of Scotch mists, which, she had heard, would wet an Englishman to the skin; never to go out at night without his great-coat; and, above all, to wear flannel near his skin.

Mr Pembroke only wrote to our hero one letter, but it was of the bulk of six 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 interesting pamphlets, lately published by his friend in Little Britain, with whom he had kept up a sort of literary 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 which Sir Everard Waverley of Waverley - Honour, Bart. was marked Dr to Jonathan Grubbet, bookseller and stationer, Little Britain. 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 interesting complexion. 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.

The 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 late acquired some new proselytes, and with them the hope of superseding their rivals in the favour of their sovereign, and overpowering them in the House of Commons. Amongst others, they had thought it worth while to practise upon Richard Waver

ley. This honest gentleman, by 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, had acquired a certain name and credit in public life, and even established, with many, the character of a profound politician; none of your shining orators, indeed, whose talents evaporate in tropes of rhetoric and flashes of wit, but one possessed of steady parts for business, which would wear well, as the ladies say in chusing their silks, and ought in all reason to be good for common and every day use, since they were confessedly formed of no holiday texture.

This faith had become so general, that the party in the cabinet of which we have made mention, after sounding Mr Richard Waverley, were so satisfied with his sentiments and abilities, as to propose that, in case of a certain revolution in the ministry, he should take an ostensible place in the new order of things, not indeed of the first rank, but greatly higher, in point both of emolument and influence, than that which he now enjoyed. There was no resisting so tempting a proposal, notwithstanding that the Great Man, under whose patronage he had enlisted, and by whose banner

he had hitherto stood firm, was the principal object of the proposed attack by the new allies. Unfortunately, this fair scheme of ambition was blighted in the very bud, by a premature movement. All the official gentlemen concerned in it, who hesitated to take the part of a voluntary resignation, were informed that the king had no farther occasion for their services; and, in Richard Waverley's case, which the minister considered as aggravated by ingratitude, dismissal was accompanied by something like personal contempt and contumely. The public, and even the party of whom he shared the fall, sympathised little in the disappointment of this selfish and interested statesman, and he retired to the country under the comfortable reflection, that he had lost, at the same time, character, credit, and,-what he at least equally deplored,-emolument.

Richard Waverley's letter to his son upon this occasion was a masterpiece of its kind. Aristides himself could not have made out a harder case. An unjust monarch, and an ungrateful country, were the burthen of each rounded paragraph. He spoke of long services, and unrequited sacrifices, though the former had been overpaid by his salary, and nobody could guess in whatthe latter consisted, unless it were in his deserting, not from conviction, but for the lucre of gain, the tory principles of his family. In the conclusion,