ife, and even established,
with many, the character of a profound politician; none of your shining
orators, indeed, whose talents evaporate in tropes of rhetoric and
dashes of wit, but one possessed of steady parts for business, which
would wear well, as the ladies say in choosing their silks, and ought
in all reason to be good for common and everyday use, since they were
confessedly formed of no holiday texture.

This faith had become so general, that the insurgent party in the
Cabinet of which we have made mention, after sounding Mr. Richard
Waverley, were so satisfied with his sentiments and abilities, as to
propose, that, in case of a certain revolution in the ministry, he
should take an ostensible place in the new order of things, not indeed
of the very first rank, but greatly higher, in point both of emolument
and influence, than that which he now enjoyed. There was no resisting
so tempting a proposal, notwithstanding that the Great Man, under whose
patronage he had enlisted and by whose banner he had hitherto stood
firm, was the principal object of the proposed attack by the new allies.
Unfortunately this fair scheme of ambition was blighted in the very bud,
by a premature movement. All the official gentlemen concerned in it,
who hesitated to take the part of a voluntary resignation, were informed
that the king had no further occasion for their services; and, in
Richard Waverley's case, which the Minister considered as aggravated
by ingratitude; dismissal was accompanied by something like personal
contempt and contumely. The public, and even the party of whom he shared
the fall, sympathized little in the disappointment of this selfish
and interested statesman; and he retired to the country under the
comfortable reflection, that he had lost, at the same time, character,
credit, and,--what he at least equally deplored,--emolument.

Richard Waverley's letter to his son upon this occasion was a
masterpiece of its kind. Aristides himself could not have made out a
harder case. An unjust monarch, and an ungrateful country, were the
burden of each rounded paragraph. He spoke of long services, and
unrequited sacrifices; though the former had been overpaid by his
salary, and nobody could guess in what the latter consisted, unless it
were in his deserting, not from conviction, but for the lucre of gain,
the Tory principles of his family. In the conclusion, his resentment was
wrought to such an excess by the force of his ow