t.
Traitor! treason! what names are these to scare you and me? Are all
Oliver's men dead, or his glorious name forgotten in fifty years? Are
there no men equal to him, think you, as good--ay, as good? God save the
King! and, if the monarchy fails us, God save the British Republic!"

He filled another great bumper, and tossed it up and drained it wildly,
just as the noise of rapid carriage-wheels approaching was stopped at
our door, and after a hurried knock and a moment's interval, Mr. Swift
came into the hall, ran up stairs to the room we were dining in, and
entered it with a perturbed face. St. John, excited with drink, was
making some wild quotation out of Macbeth, but Swift stopped him.

"Drink no more, my lord, for God's sake!" says he. "I come with the most
dreadful news."

"Is the Queen dead?" cries out Bolingbroke, seizing on a water-glass.

"No, Duke Hamilton is dead: he was murdered an hour ago by Mohun and
Macartney; they had a quarrel this morning; they gave him not so much
time as to write a letter. He went for a couple of his friends, and he
is dead, and Mohun, too, the bloody villain, who was set on him. They
fought in Hyde Park just before sunset; the Duke killed Mohun, and
Macartney came up and stabbed him, and the dog is fled. I have your
chariot below; send to every part of the country and apprehend that
villain; come to the Duke's house and see if any life be left in him."

"Oh, Beatrix, Beatrix," thought Esmond, "and here ends my poor girl's
ambition!"

CHAPTER VI.

POOR BEATRIX.

There had been no need to urge upon Esmond the necessity of a separation
between him and Beatrix: Fate had done that completely; and I think from
the very moment poor Beatrix had accepted the Duke's offer, she began
to assume the majestic air of a Duchess, nay, Queen Elect, and to carry
herself as one sacred and removed from us common people. Her mother
and kinsman both fell into her ways, the latter scornfully perhaps, and
uttering his usual gibes at her vanity and his own. There was a certain
charm about this girl of which neither Colonel Esmond nor his fond
mistress could forego the fascination; in spite of her faults and her
pride and wilfulness, they were forced to love her; and, indeed, might
be set down as the two chief flatterers of the brilliant creature's
court.

Who, in the course of his life, hath not been so bewitched, and
worshipped some idol or another? Years after this passion hath been d