atest general of the age.

"I drink to the greatest general with all my heart," says Mr. Webb;
"there can be no gainsaying that character of him. My glass goes to the
General, and not to the Duke, Mr. Steele." And the stout old gentleman
emptied his bumper; to which Dick replied by filling and emptying a pair
of brimmers, one for the General and one for the Duke.

And now his Grace of Hamilton, rising up with flashing eyes (we had all
been drinking pretty freely), proposed a toast to the lovely, to the
incomparable Mrs. Beatrix Esmond; we all drank it with cheers, and my
Lord Ashburnham especially, with a shout of enthusiasm.

"What a pity there is a Duchess of Hamilton," whispers St. John, who
drank more wine and yet was more steady than most of the others, and we
entered the drawing-room where the ladies were at their tea. As for poor
Dick, we were obliged to leave him alone at the dining-table, where he
was hiccupping out the lines from the "Campaign," in which the greatest
poet had celebrated the greatest general in the world; and Harry Esmond
found him, half an hour afterwards, in a more advanced stage of liquor,
and weeping about the treachery of Tom Boxer.

The drawing-room was all dark to poor Harry, in spite of the grand
illumination. Beatrix scarce spoke to him. When my Lord Duke went away,
she practised upon the next in rank, and plied my young Lord Ashburnham
with all the fire of her eyes and the fascinations of her wit. Most of
the party were set to cards, and Mr. St. John, after yawning in the face
of Mrs. Steele, whom he did not care to pursue any more; and talking in
his most brilliant animated way to Lady Castlewood, whom he pronounced
to be beautiful, of a far higher order of beauty than her daughter,
presently took his leave, and went his way. The rest of the company
speedily followed, my Lord Ashburnham the last, throwing fiery glances
at the smiling young temptress, who had bewitched more hearts than his
in her thrall.

No doubt, as a kinsman of the house, Mr. Esmond thought fit to be the
last of all in it; he remained after the coaches had rolled away--after
his dowager aunt's chair and flambeaux had marched off in the darkness
towards Chelsey, and the town's people had gone to bed, who had been
drawn into the square to gape at the unusual assemblage of chairs and
chariots, lackeys, and torchmen. The poor mean wretch lingered yet for
a few minutes, to see whether the girl would vouchsafe him a