l unrivalled beauty of his noble features; but the manner
gained all that the form had lost. In his days of more noisy greatness,
there had been something artificial and unquiet in the sparkling
alternations he had loved to adopt. He had been too fond of changing
wisdom by a quick turn into wit,--too fond of the affectation of
bordering the serious with the gay, business with pleasure. If this had
not taken from the polish of his manner, it had diminished its dignity
and given it the air of being assumed and insincere. Now all was
quiet, earnest, and impressive; there was tenderness even in what was
melancholy: and if there yet lingered the affectation of blending the
classic character with his own, the character was more noble and the
affectation more unseen. But this manner was only the faint mirror of a
mind which, retaining much of its former mould, had been embellished and
exalted by adversity, and which if it banished not its former faculties,
had acquired a thousand new virtues to redeem them.

"You see," said my companion, pointing to the walls of the hall, which
we had now entered, "the subject which at present occupies the greater
part of my attention. I am meditating how to make the hall most
illustrative of its owner's pursuits. You see the desire of improving,
of creating, and of associating the improvement and the creation with
ourselves, follows us banished men even to our seclusion. I think of
having those walls painted with the implements of husbandry, and through
pictures of spades and ploughshares to express my employments and
testify my content in them."

"Cincinnatus is a better model than Aristippus: confess it," said I,
smiling. "But if the senators come hither to summon you to power, will
you resemble the Roman, not only in being found at your plough, but in
your reluctance to leave it, and your eagerness to return?"

"What shall I say to you?" replied Bolingbroke. "Will you play the cynic
if I answer _no_? We _should not_ boast of despising power, when of use
to others, but of being contented to live without it. This is the end of
my philosophy! But let me present you to one whom I value more now than
I valued power at any time."

As he said this, Bolingbroke threw open the door of an apartment, and
introduced me to a lady with whom he had found that domestic happiness
denied him in his first marriage. The niece of Madame de Maintenon, this
most charming woman possessed all her aunt's wit, an