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despised him, and did not care to conceal her sentiments. The king had, in
compliance with her exactions, cast off his old friends, but he had
acquired no new ones under her guidance. In this dearth of sympathy, he had
recourse to his almost infant son; and the early development of talent and
sensibility rendered Adrian no unfitting depository of his father's
confidence. He was never weary of listening to the latter's often repeated
accounts of old times, in which my father had played a distinguished part;
his keen remarks were repeated to the boy, and remembered by him; his wit,
his fascinations, his very faults were hallowed by the regret of affection;
his loss was sincerely deplored. Even the queen's dislike of the favourite
was ineffectual to deprive him of his son's admiration: it was bitter,
sarcastic, contemptuous--but as she bestowed her heavy censure alike on
his virtues as his errors, on his devoted friendship and his ill-bestowed
loves, on his disinterestedness and his prodigality, on his pre-possessing
grace of manner, and the facility with which he yielded to temptation, her
double shot proved too heavy, and fell short of the mark. Nor did her angry
dislike prevent Adrian from imaging my father, as he had said, the type of
all that was gallant, amiable, and fascinating in man. It was not strange
therefore, that when he heard of the existence of the offspring of this
celebrated person, he should have formed the plan of bestowing on them all
the advantages his rank made him rich to afford. When he found me a
vagabond shepherd of the hills, a poacher, an unlettered savage, still his
kindness did not fail. In addition to the opinion he entertained that his
father was to a degree culpable of neglect towards us, and that he was
bound to every possible reparation, he was pleased to say that under all my
ruggedness there glimmered forth an elevation of spirit, which could be
distinguished from mere animal courage, and that I inherited a similarity
of countenance to my father, which gave proof that all his virtues and
talents had not died with him. Whatever those might be which descended to
me, my noble young friend resolved should not be lost for want of culture.

Acting upon this plan in our subsequent intercourse, he led me to wish to
participate in that cultivation which graced his own intellect. My active
mind, when once it seized upon this new idea, fastened on it with extreme
avidity. At first it was the grea