of his youth. Raised to the dignity of a
bishop, the late tutor has arrived in London to take his seat in the
House of Lords. Again to see this friend of his youth, who is likely to
speak to him of Cherbury, which he loved so dearly, and of Venetia, is a
pleasure which his triumphs have never afforded him; and from that
moment all is changed in his eyes, every thing is smiling, every thing
is bright.

He learns that Lady Annabel and Venetia have left their retreat of
Cherbury and have arrived in London. Cadurcis has but one thought, one
aspiration, that of seeing them again. He does see Venetia again, and he
feels that the world's praises are no longer any thing to him, except to
be placed at her feet, and that he would give up all the idolatry of
which he is the object for one year of happiness spent at Cherbury. When
Venetia sees her ideal realized, and that Lord Cadurcis unites in him
all the qualities of her dear Plantagenet with those brilliant and
imposing talents which command love and admiration; when she beholds in
him the genius of her father linked with the heart of her earliest
friend, to whom she is still so deeply attached; when she sees her dear
Plantagenet "courted, considered, crowned, incensed--in fact, a great
man" living in an atmosphere of glory and in the midst of the applause
of his contemporaries, Venetia exchanges her fraternal love, which was
so touching, for the most ardent passion which one perfect creature can
inspire in one as perfect as itself.

But the obstacle to their happiness now arises, and Lady Annabel it is
who becomes metamorphosed into a woman whose judgment is false, whose
prejudices are great, whose principles are inexorable; who knows nothing
of the world, nothing of her own heart nor of the human heart; who
judges all things by certain arbitrary rules, and acts sternly in
accordance with her inexplicable judgment. All the love which she would
have had for Plantagenet at Cherbury is turned into hatred on learning
that he has become a great poet, the admiration of his country, the
observed of all observers; that all the world is anxious to see him,
that the finest ladies sigh for one of his looks, that he is not
insensible to their admiration, that he is a Whig, and not only a Whig,
but very nearly a rebel. She reads his poems, and her astonishment is
only surpassed by the horror with which they inspire her. She sees
Herbert in Cadurcis, and unable as she was to understand the