laws of this country so bounteously supply,--those times of
great hilarity and eating to the legal gentry,--

"Who feed on crimes and fatten on distress,
And wring vile mirth from suffering's last excess."

Ah! excellent order of the world, which it is so wicked to disturb! How
miraculously beautiful must be that system which makes wine out of
the scorching tears of guilt; and from the suffocating suspense,
the agonized fear, the compelled and self-mocking bravery, the awful
sentence, the despairing death-pang of one man, furnishes the smirking
expectation of fees, the jovial meeting, and the mercenary holiday to
another! "Of Law, nothing less can be said than that her seat is the
bosom of God."--[Hooker's Ecclesiastical Polity.]--To be sure not;
Richard Hooker, you are perfectly right. The divinity of a sessions and
the inspiration of the Old Bailey are undeniable!

The care of Sir William Brandon had effectually kept from Lucy's ear the
knowledge of her lover's ignominious situation. Indeed, in her delicate
health even the hard eye of Brandon and the thoughtless glance of
Mauleverer perceived the danger of such a discovery. The earl, now
waiting the main attack on Lucy till the curtain had forever dropped on
Clifford, proceeded with great caution and delicacy in his suit to his
purposed bride. He waited with the more patience inasmuch as he had
drawn in advance on his friend Sir William for some portion of the
heiress's fortune; and he readily allowed that he could not in the mean
while have a better advocate than he found in Brandon. So persuasive,
indeed, and so subtle was the eloquence of this able sophist, that
often in his artful conversations with his niece he left even on the
unvitiated and strong though simple mind of Lucy an uneasy and restless
impression, which time might have ripened into an inclination towards
the worldly advantages of the marriage at her command. Brandon was no
bungling mediator or violent persecutor. He seemed to acquiesce in her
rejection of Mauleverer. He scarcely recurred to the event. He rarely
praised the earl himself, save for the obvious qualities of liveliness
and good-nature. But he spoke, with all the vivid colours he could
infuse at will into his words, of the pleasures and the duties of rank
and wealth. Well could he appeal alike to all the prejudices and all the
foibles of the human breast, and govern virtue through its weaknesses.
Lucy had be