y a
bottle. Sir Chetwode was somewhat garrulous, and was often like a man at
a play, in the wrong box! Sir Tichborne was somewhat taciturn; but when
he spoke, it was always to the purpose, and made an impression, even if
it were not new. Both were kind hearts; but Sir Chetwode was jovial,
Sir Tichborne rather stern. Sir Chetwode often broke into a joke; Sir
Tichborne sometimes backed into a sneer. .

A few of these characters were made known by Mr. Dacre to his young
friend, but not many, and in an easy way; those that stood nearest.
Introduction is a formality and a bore, and is never resorted to by your
well-bred host, save in a casual way. When proper people meet at proper
houses, they give each other credit for propriety, and slide into an
acquaintance by degrees. The first day they catch a name; the next, they
ask you whether you are the son of General----. 'No; he was my uncle.'
'Ah! I knew him well. A worthy soul!' And then the thing is settled. You
ride together, shoot, or fence, or hunt. A game of billiards will do no
great harm; and when you part, you part with a hope that you may meet
again.

Lord Mildmay was glad to meet with the son of an old friend. He knew the
late Duke well, and loved him better. It is pleasant to hear our fathers
praised. We, too, may inherit their virtues with their lands, or
cash, or bonds; and, scapegraces as we are, it is agreeable to find a
precedent for the blood turning out well. And, after all, there is no
feeling more thoroughly delightful than to be conscious that the kind
being from whose loins we spring, and to whom we cling with an innate
and overpowering love, is viewed by others with regard, with reverence,
or with admiration. There is no pride like the pride of ancestry, for it
is a blending of all emotions. How immeasurably superior to the herd is
the man whose father only is famous! Imagine, then, the feelings of
one who can trace his line through a thousand years of heroes and of
princes!

'Tis dinner! hour that I have loved as loves the bard the twilight; but
no more those visions rise that once were wont to spring in my quick
fancy. The dream is past, the spell is broken, and even the lore on
which I pondered in my first youth is strange as figures in Egyptian
tombs.

No more, no more, oh! never more to me, that hour shall bring its
rapture and its bliss! No more, no more, oh! never more for me, shall
Flavour sit upon her thousand thrones, and, like a syren wit