troduced, to be
coarse both in speech and manner. I seize upon this opportunity, _mal
a propos_ as it is, to observe that Swift's preference of Harley to St.
John is by no means so certain as writers have been pleased generally to
assert. Warton has already noted a passage in one of Swift's letters to
Bolingbroke, to which I will beg to call the reader's attention.

"It is _you were_ my hero, but the other (Lord Oxford) _never was_; yet
if he were, it was your own fault, who taught me to love him, and often
vindicated him, in the beginning of your ministry, from my accusations.
But I granted he had the greatest inequalities of any man alive; and his
whole scene was fifty times more a what-d'ye-call-it than yours; for
I declare yours was _unie_, and I wish you would so order it that the
world may be as wise as I upon that article."

I have to apologize for introducing this quotation, which I have done
because (and I entreat the reader to remember this) I observe that Count
Devereux always speaks of Lord Bolingbroke as he was spoken of by the
eminent men of that day,--not as he is now rated by the judgment of
posterity.--ED.

CHAPTER VIII.

LIGHTLY WON, LIGHTLY LOST.--A DIALOGUE OF EQUAL INSTRUCTION AND
AMUSEMENT.--A VISIT TO SIR GODFREY KNELLER.

ONE morning Tarleton breakfasted with me. "I don't see the little page,"
said he, "who was always in attendance in your anteroom; what the deuce
has become of him?"

"You must ask his mistress; she has quarrelled with me, and withdrawn
both her favour and her messenger."

"What! the Lady Hasselton quarrelled with you! _Diable_! Wherefore?"

"Because I am not enough of the 'pretty fellow;' am tired of carrying
hood and scarf, and sitting behind her chair through five long acts of a
dull play; because I disappointed her in not searching for her at every
drum and quadrille party; because I admired not her monkey; and because
I broke a teapot with a toad for a cover."

"And is not that enough?" cried Tarleton. "Heavens! what a black
bead-roll of offences; Mrs. Merton would have discarded me for one of
them. However, thy account has removed my surprise; I heard her praise
thee the other day; now, as long as she loved thee, she always abused
thee like a pickpocket."

"Ha! ha! ha!--and what said she in my favour?"

"Why, that you were certainly very handsome, though you were small; that
you were certainly a great genius, though every one would not discover
it; and tha