while drawing on his boots for a run
with the Dauphin's celebrated wolf pack, was informed that King James
meant to be of the party, and was forced to stay at home. Another day,
when his Excellency had set his heart on having some sport with the
royal staghounds, he was informed by the Grand Huntsman that King James
might probably come to the rendezvous without any notice. Melfort was
particularly active in laying traps for the young noblemen and gentlemen
of the Legation. The Prince of Wales was more than once placed in such a
situation that they could scarcely avoid passing close to him. Were they
to salute him? Were they to stand erect and covered while every body
else saluted him? No Englishman zealous for the Bill of Rights and
the Protestant religion would willingly do any thing which could
be construed into an act of homage to a Popish pretender. Yet no
goodnatured and generous man, however firm in his Whig principles,
would willingly offer any thing which could look like an affront to an
innocent and a most unfortunate child.

Meanwhile other matters of grave importance claimed Portland's
attention. There was one matter in particular about which the French
ministers anxiously expected him to say something, but about which he
observed strict silence. How to interpret that silence they scarcely
knew. They were certain only that it could not be the effect of
unconcern. They were well assured that the subject which he so carefully
avoided was never, during two waking hours together, out of his
thoughts or out of the thoughts of his master. Nay, there was not in all
Christendom a single politician, from the greatest ministers of state
down to the silliest newsmongers of coffeehouses, who really felt
that indifference which the prudent Ambassador of England affected. A
momentous event, which had during many years been constantly becoming
more and more probable, was now certain and near. Charles the Second of
Spain, the last descendant in the male line of the Emperor Charles the
Fifth, would soon die without posterity. Who would then be the heir to
his many kingdoms, dukedoms, counties, lordships, acquired in different
ways, held by different titles and subject to different laws? That was a
question about which jurists differed, and which it was not likely that
jurists would, even if they were unanimous, be suffered to decide. Among
the claimants were the mightiest sovereigns of the continent; there was
little chance