So rest you, merry gentlemen.—Monsieur Thomas.
The Author has now only to take his leave of the less important characters whom he has assembled together; and then, all due courtesy to his numerous guests being performed, to retire himself to repose.
First, then, for Mr. Morris Brown: In the second year of Lord Ulswater’s marriage, the worthy broker paid Mrs. Minden’s nephew a visit, in which he persuaded that gentleman to accept, “as presents,” two admirable fire screens, the property of the late Lady Waddilove: the same may be now seen in the housekeeper’s room at Borodaile Park by any person willing to satisfy his curiosity and—the housekeeper. Of all further particulars respecting Mr. Morris Brown, history is silent.
In the obituary for 1792, we find the following paragraph:
“Died at his house in Putney, aged seventy-three, Sir Nicholas Copperas, Knt., a gentleman well known on the Exchange for his facetious humour. Several of his bons-mots are still recorded in the Common Council. When residing many years ago in the suburbs of London, this worthy gentleman was accustomed to go from his own house to the Exchange in a coach called ‘the Swallow,’ that passed his door just at breakfast-time; upon which occasion he was wont wittily to observe to his accomplished spouse, ‘And now, Mrs. Copperas, having swallowed in the roll, I will e’en roll in the Swallow!’ His whole property is left to Adolphus Copperas, Esq., banker.”
And in the next year we discover,—
“Died, on Wednesday last, at her jointure house, Putney, in her sixty-eighth year, the amiable and elegant Lady Copperas, relict of the late Sir Nicholas, Knt.”
Mr. Trollolop, having exhausted the whole world of metaphysics, died like Descartes, “in believing he had left nothing unexplained.”
Mr. Callythorpe entered the House of Commons at the time of the French Revolution. He distinguished himself by many votes in favour of Mr. Pitt, and one speech which ran thus: “Sir, I believe my right honourable friend who spoke last (Mr. Pitt) designs to ruin the country: but I will support him through all. Honourable Gentlemen may laugh; but I’m a true Briton, and will not serve my friend the less because I scorn to flatter him.”
Sir Christopher Findlater lost his life by an accident arising from the upsetting of his carriage, his good heart not having suffered him to part with a drunken coachman.
Mr. Glumford turned miser in his old age; and died of want, and an extravagant son.
Our honest Cole and his wife were always among the most welcome visitors at Lord Ulswater’s. In his extreme old age, the ex-king took a journey to Scotland, to see the Author of “The Lay of the Last Minstrel.” Nor should we do justice to the chief’s critical discernment if we neglected to record that, from the earliest dawn of that great luminary of our age, he predicted its meridian splendour. The eldest son of the gypsy-monarch inherited his father’s spirit, and is yet alive, a general, and G.C.B.
Mr. Harrison married Miss Elizabeth, and succeeded to the Golden Fleece.
The Duke of Haverfield and Lord Ulswater continued their friendship through life; and the letters of our dear Flora to her correspondent, Eleanor, did not cease even with that critical and perilous period to all maiden correspondents,—Marriage. If we may judge from the subsequent letters which we have been permitted to see, Eleanor never repented her brilliant nuptials, nor discovered (as the Duchess of —— once said from experience) “that Dukes are as intolerable for husbands as they are delightful for matches.”
And Isabel Mordaunt?—Ah! not in these pages shall her history be told even in epitome. Perhaps for some future narrative, her romantic and eventful fate may be reserved. Suffice it for the present, that the childhood of the young heiress passed in the house of Lord Ulswater, whose proudest boast, through a triumphant and prosperous life, was to have been her father’s friend; and that as she grew up, she inherited her mother’s beauty and gentle heart, and seemed to bear in her deep eyes and melancholy smile some remembrance of the scenes in which her infancy had been passed.
But for Him, the husband and the father, whose trials through this wrong world I have portrayed,—for him let there be neither murmurs at the blindness of Fate, nor sorrow at the darkness of his doom. Better that the lofty and bright spirit should pass away before the petty business of life had bowed it, or the sordid mists of this low earth breathed a shadow on its lustre! Who would have asked that spirit to have struggled on for years in the intrigues, the hopes, the objects of meaner souls? Who would have desired that the heavenward and impatient heart should have grown insured to the chains and toil of this enslaved state, or hardened into the callousness of age? Nor would we claim the vulgar pittance of compassion for a lot which is exalted above regret! Pity is for our weaknesses: to our weaknesses only be it given. It is the aliment of love; it is the wages of ambition; it is the rightful heritage of error! But why should pity be entertained for the soul which never fell? for the courage which never quailed? for the majesty never humbled? for the wisdom which, from the rough things of the common world, raised an empire above earth and destiny? for the stormy life?—it was a triumph! for the early death?—it was immortality!
I have stood beside Mordaunt’s tomb: his will had directed that he should sleep not in the vaults of his haughty line; and his last dwelling is surrounded by a green and pleasant spot. The trees shadow it like a temple; and a silver though fitful brook wails with a constant yet not ungrateful dirge at the foot of the hill on which the tomb is placed. I have stood there in those ardent years when our wishes know no boundary and our ambition no curb; yet, even then, I would have changed my wildest vision of romance for that quiet grave, and the dreams of the distant spirit whose relics reposed beneath it.
THE END.
All books are sourced from Project Gutenberg