a glorious fellow he would have been! Prime minister
at least!"

Pale, haggard, exhausted, Castruccio Cesarini, traversing a length of
way, arrived at last at a miserable lodging in the suburb of Chelsea.
His fortune was now gone; gone in supplying the poorest food to a
craving and imbecile vanity: gone, that its owner might seem what nature
never meant him for: the elegant Lothario, the graceful man of pleasure,
the troubadour of modern life! gone in horses, and jewels, and fine
clothes, and gaming, and printing unsaleable poems on gilt-edged vellum;
gone, that he might not be a greater but a more fashionable man than
Ernest Maltravers! Such is the common destiny of those poor adventurers
who confine fame to boudoirs and saloons. No matter whether they be
poets or dandies, wealthy _parvenus_ or aristocratic cadets, all equally
prove the adage that the wrong paths to reputation are strewed with the
wrecks of peace, fortune, happiness, and too often honour! And yet this
poor young man had dared to hope for the hand of Florence Lascelles! He
had the common notion of foreigners, that English girls marry for
love, are very romantic; that, within the three seas, heiresses are
as plentiful as blackberries; and for the rest, his vanity had been
so pampered, that it now insinuated itself into every fibre of his
intellectual and moral system.

Cesarini looked cautiously round, as he arrived at his door; for he
fancied that, even in that obscure place, persons might be anxious to
catch a glimpse of the celebrated poet; and he concealed his residence
from all; dined on a roll when he did not dine out, and left his address
at "The Travellers." He looked round, I say, and he did observe a tall
figure wrapped in a cloak that had indeed followed him from a distant
and more populous part of the town. But the figure turned round, and
vanished instantly. Cesarini mounted to his second floor. And about the
middle of the next day a messenger left a letter at his door, containing
one hundred pounds in a blank envelope. Cesarini knew not the writing of
the address; his pride was deeply wounded. Amidst all his penury, he
had not even applied to his own sister. Could it come from her, from De
Montaigne? He was lost in conjecture. He put the remittance aside for
a few days; for he had something fine in him, the poor poet! but bills
grew pressing, and necessity hath no law.

Two days afterwards, Cesarini brought to Ferrers the answer he had