. But his antechamber, in particular, might be compared to a
gathering of eagles to the slaughter, were not the simile too dignified
to express that vile race, who, by a hundred devices all tending to one
common end, live upon the wants of needy greatness, or administer to
the pleasures of summer-teeming luxury, or stimulate the wild wishes
of lavish and wasteful extravagance, by devising new modes and fresh
motives of profusion. There stood the projector, with his mysterious
brow, promising unbounded wealth to whomsoever might choose to furnish
the small preliminary sum necessary to change egg-shells into the
great _arcanum_. There was Captain Seagull, undertaker for a foreign
settlement, with the map under his arm of Indian or American kingdoms,
beautiful as the primitive Eden, waiting the bold occupants, for whom
a generous patron should equip two brigantines and a fly-boat. Thither
came, fast and frequent, the gamesters, in their different forms and
calling. This, light, young, gay in appearance, the thoughtless youth of
wit and pleasure--the pigeon rather than the rook--but at heart the
same sly, shrewd, cold-blooded calculator, as yonder old hard-featured
professor of the same science, whose eyes are grown dim with watching
of the dice at midnight; and whose fingers are even now assisting his
mental computation of chances and of odds. The fine arts, too--I would
it were otherwise--have their professors amongst this sordid train.
The poor poet, half ashamed, in spite of habit, of the part which he
is about to perform, and abashed by consciousness at once of his
base motive and his shabby black coat, lurks in yonder corner for the
favourable moment to offer his dedication. Much better attired, the
architect presents his splendid vision of front and wings, and designs
a palace, the expense of which may transfer his employer to a jail. But
uppermost of all, the favourite musician, or singer, who waits on my
lord to receive, in solid gold, the value of the dulcet sounds which
solaced the banquet of the preceding evening.

Such, and many such like, were the morning attendants of the Duke of
Buckingham--all genuine descendants of the daughter of the horse-leech,
whose cry is "Give, give."

But the levee of his Grace contained other and very different
characters; and was indeed as various as his own opinions and pursuits.
Besides many of the young nobility and wealthy gentry of England, who
made his Grace the glass at wh