hey had long since began to welcome me.
"Her brother may perish on the gibbet!" was the thought that curdled my
blood, and I bowed distantly and passed on.

I met Vincent. He seemed dispirited and dejected. He already saw how ill
his party had succeeded; above all, he was enraged at the idea of the
person assigned by rumour to fill the place he had intended for himself.
This person was a sort of rival to his lordship, a man of quaintness and
quotation, with as much learning as Vincent, equal wit, and--but that
personage is still in office, and I will say no more, lest he should
think I flatter.

To our subject. It has probably been observed that Lord Vincent had
indulged less of late in that peculiar strain of learned humour formerly
his wont. The fact is, that he had been playing another part; he wished
to remove from his character that appearance of literary coxcombry
with which he was accused. He knew well how necessary, in the game of
politics, it is to appear no less a man of the world than of books;
and though he was not averse to display his clerkship and scholastic
information, yet he endeavoured to make them seem rather valuable for
their weight, than curious for their fashion. How few there are in the
world who retain, after a certain age, the character originally natural
to them! We all get, as it were, a second skin; the little foibles,
propensities, eccentricities, we first indulged through affectation,
conglomerate and encrust till the artificiality grows into nature.

"Pelham," said Vincent, with a cold smile, "the day will be your's;
the battle is not to the strong--the whigs will triumph. 'Fugere
Pudor, verumque, fidesque; in quorum subiere locum fraudesque dolique
insidioeque et vis et amor sceleratus habendi.'"

"A pretty modest quotation," said I. "You must allow at least, that the
amor sceleratus habendi was also, in some moderate degree, shared by the
Pudor and Fides which characterize your party; otherwise, I am at a loss
how to account for the tough struggle against us we have lately had the
honour of resisting."

"Never mind," replied Vincent, "I will not refute you,

"'La richesse permet une juste fierte, Mais il faut etre souple avec
la pauvrete.' It is not for us, the defeated, to argue with you the
victors. But pray, (continued Vincent, with a sneer which pleased me
not), pray, among this windfall of the Hesperian fruit, what nice little
apple will fall to your share?"

"My good Vinc