r from Humbleton, and he
preached a sermon on the loss which the parish had sustained in the
sudden death of the two brothers. It is perhaps well that such sermons
should be preached. The inhabitants of Clavering would have felt that
their late lords had been treated like dogs had no word been said of
them in the house of God. The nature of their fate had forbidden even
the common ceremony of a burial service. It is well that some respect
should be maintained from the low in station toward those who are high,
even where no respect has been deserved; and, for the widow's sake, it
was well that some notice should be taken in Clavering of this death of
the head of the Claverings; but I should not myself have liked the duty
of preaching a eulogistic sermon on the lives and death of Hugh
Clavering and his brother Archie. What had either of them ever done to
merit a good word from any man, or to earn the love of any woman? That
Sir Hugh had been loved by his wife had come from the nature of the
woman, not at all from the qualities of the man. Both of the brothers
had lived on the unexpressed theory of consuming, for the benefit of
their own backs and their own bellies, the greatest possible amount of
those good things which fortune might put in their way. I doubt whether
either of them had ever contributed any thing willingly to the comfort
or happiness of any human being. Hugh, being powerful by nature, and
having a strong will, had tyrannized over all those who were subject to
him. Archie, not gifted as was his brother, had been milder, softer, and
less actively hateful; but his principle of action had been the same.
Everything for himself! Was it not well that two such men should be
consigned to the fishes, and that the world--especially the Clavering
world, and that poor widow, who now felt herself to be so inexpressibly
wretched when her period of comfort was in truth only commencing--was it
not well that the world and Clavering should be well quit of them? That
idea is the one which one would naturally have felt inclined to put into
one's sermon on such an occasion; and then to sing some song of
rejoicing--either to do that, or to leave the matter alone.

But not so are such sermons preached, and not after that fashion did the
young clergyman who had married the first cousin of these Claverings
buckle himself to the subject. He indeed had, I think, but little
difficulty, either inwardly with his conscience, or outwardly