ke them,' said Tancred, 'though I feel
they will only embarrass me. They have engaged to be ready at a week's
notice; I shall write to them immediately. If they do not fulfil their
engagement, I am absolved from mine.'

'So you have got a yacht, eh?' said Lord Eskdale. 'I suppose you have
bought the Basilisk?'

'Exactly.'

'She wants a good deal doing to her.'

'Something, but chiefly for show, which I do not care about; but I mean
to get away, and refit, if necessary, at Gibraltar. I must go.'

'Well, if you must go,' said his lordship, and then he added, 'and in
such a hurry; let me see. You want a firstrate managing man, used to the
East, and letters, and money, and advice. Hem! You don't know Sidonia?'

'Not at all.'

'He is the man to get hold of, but that is so difficult now. He never
goes anywhere. Let me see, this is Monday; to-morrow is post-day, and
I dine with him alone in the City. Well, you shall hear from me on
Wednesday morning early, about everything; but I would not write to the
colonel and his friends just yet.'

CHAPTER XVI.

_Tancred Rescues a Lady in Distress_

THAT is most striking in London is its vastness. It is the illimitable
feeling that gives it a special character. London is not grand. It
possesses only one of the qualifications of a grand city, size; but it
wants the equally important one, beauty. It is the union of these two
qualities that produced the grand cities, the Romes, the Babylons,
the hundred portals of the Pharaohs; multitudes and magnificence; the
millions influenced by art. Grand cities are unknown since the beautiful
has ceased to be the principle of invention. Paris, of modern capitals,
has aspired to this character; but if Paris be a beautiful city, it
certainly is not a grand one; its population is too limited, and, from
the nature of their dwellings, they cover a comparatively small space.
Constantinople is picturesque; nature has furnished a sublime site, but
it has little architectural splendour, and you reach the environs with a
fatal facility. London overpowers us with its vastness.

Place a Forum or an Acropolis in its centre, and the effect of the
metropolitan mass, which now has neither head nor heart, instead of
being stupefying, would be ennobling. Nothing more completely represents
a nation than a public building. A member of Parliament only represents,
at the most, the united constituencies: but the Palace of the Sovereign,
a National G