us feelings, and despite the manner in which, naturally anxious to
make the least unfavourable portrait of himself to Philip, he softened
and glossed over the practices of his life--a thorough and complete
rogue, a dangerous, desperate, reckless daredevil. It was easy to see
when anything crossed him, by the cloud on his shaggy brow, by the
swelling of the veins on the forehead, by the dilation of the broad
nostril, that he was one to cut his way through every obstacle to an
end,--choleric, impetuous, fierce, determined. Such, indeed, were the
qualities that made him respected among his associates, as his
more bland and humorous ones made him beloved. He was, in fact, the
incarnation of that great spirit which the laws of the world raise up
against the world, and by which the world's injustice on a large scale
is awfully chastised; on a small scale, merely nibbled at and harassed,
as the rat that gnaws the hoof of the elephant:--the spirit which, on a
vast theatre, rises up, gigantic and sublime, in the heroes of war and
revolution--in Mirabeaus, Marats, Napoleons: on a minor stage, it shows
itself in demagogues, fanatical philosophers, and mob-writers; and on
the forbidden boards, before whose reeking lamps outcasts sit, at once
audience and actors, it never produced a knave more consummate in
his part, or carrying it off with more buskined dignity, than
William Gawtrey. I call him by his aboriginal name; as for his other
appellations, Bacchus himself had not so many!

One day, a lady, richly dressed, was ushered by Mr. Birnie into the
bureau of Mr. Love, alias Gawtrey. Philip was seated by the window,
reading, for the first time, the Candide,--that work, next to Rasselas,
the most hopeless and gloomy of the sports of genius with mankind.
The lady seemed rather embarrassed when she perceived Mr. Love was not
alone. She drew back, and, drawing her veil still more closely round
her, said, in French:

"Pardon me, I would wish a private conversation." Philip rose to
withdraw, when the lady, observing him with eyes whose lustre shone
through the veil, said gently: "But perhaps the young gentleman is
discreet."

"He is not discreet, he is discretion!--my adopted son. You may confide
in him--upon my honour you may, madam!" and Mr. Love placed his hand on
his heart.

"He is very young," said the lady, in a tone of involuntary compassion,
as, with a very white hand, she unclasped the buckle of her cloak.

"He can the bett