d the man,
and was eager once more to embrace him. A fiercer and more active motive
urged me to visit one whose knowledge of all men and application of
their various utilities were so remarkable, and who even in his present
peace and retirement would not improbably be acquainted with the abode
of that unquiet and plotting ecclesiastic whom I now panted to discover,
and whom Bolingbroke had of old often guided or employed.

When my carriage stopped at the statesman's door, I was informed that
Lord Bolingbroke was at his farm. Farm! how oddly did that word sound
in my ear, coupled as it was with the name of one so brilliant and so
restless!

I asked the servant to direct me where I should find him, and, following
the directions, I proceeded to the search alone. It was a day towards
the close of autumn, bright, soft, clear, and calm as the decline of a
vigorous and genial age. I walked slowly through a field robbed of its
golden grain, and as I entered another I saw the object of my search. He
had seemingly just given orders to a person in a labourer's dress, who
was quitting him, and with downcast eyes he was approaching towards me.
I noted how slow and even was the pace which, once stately, yet rapid
and irregular, had betrayed the haughty but wild character of his mind.
He paused often, as if in thought, and I observed that once he
stopped longer than usual, and seemed to gaze wistfully on the ground.
Afterwards (when I had joined him) we passed that spot, and I remarked,
with a secret smile, that it contained one of those little mounds in
which that busy and herded tribe of the insect race, which have been
held out to man's social state at once as a mockery and a model, held
their populous home. There seemed a latent moral in the pause and watch
of the disappointed statesman by that mound, which afforded a clew to
the nature of his reflections.

He did not see me till I was close before him, and had called him by his
name, nor did he at first recognize me, for my garb was foreign, and my
upper lip unshaven; and, as I said before, years had strangely altered
me; but when he did, he testified all the cordiality I had anticipated.
I linked my arm in his, and we walked to and fro for hours, talking of
all that had passed since and before our parting, and feeling our hearts
warm to each other as we talked.

"The last time I saw you," said he, "how widely did our hopes and
objects differ! Yours from my own: you seemingly