ion that it made between the affable monarch and the homeliest
trader, served to increase his popularity, and to couple it with respect
for practical sense. Edward IV. was in all this pre-eminently THE MAN
OF HIS AGE,--not an inch behind it or before! And, in addition to this
happy position, he was one of those darlings of Nature, so affluent and
blest in gifts of person, mind, and outward show, that it is only at the
distance of posterity we ask why men of his own age admired the false,
the licentious, and the cruel, where those contemporaries, over-dazzled,
saw but the heroic and the joyous, the young, the beautiful,--the
affable to friend, and the terrible to foe!

It was necessary to say thus much on the commercial tendencies of
Edward, because, at this epoch, they operated greatly, besides other
motives shortly to be made clear, in favour of the plot laid by the
enemies of the Earl of Warwick, to dishonour that powerful minister and
drive him from the councils of the king.

One morning Hastings received a summons to attend Edward, and on
entering the royal chamber, he found already assembled Lord Rivers, the
queen's father, Anthony Woodville, and the Earl of Worcester.

The king seemed thoughtful; he beckoned Hastings to approach, and placed
in his hand a letter, dated from Rouen. "Read and judge, Hastings," said
Edward.

The letter was from a gentleman in Warwick's train. It gave a glowing
account of the honours accorded to the earl by Louis XI., greater than
those ever before manifested to a subject, and proceeded thus:--

"But it is just I should apprise you that there be strange rumours as to
the marvellous love that King Louis shows my lord the earl. He lodgeth
in the next house to him, and hath even had an opening made in the
partition-wall between his own chamber and the earl's. Men do say that
the king visits him nightly, and there be those who think that so much
stealthy intercourse between an English ambassador and the kinsman of
Margaret of Anjou bodeth small profit to our grace the king."

"I observe," said Hastings, glancing to the superscription, "that this
letter is addressed to my Lord Rivers. Can he avouch the fidelity of his
correspondent?"

"Surely, yes," answered Rivers; "it is a gentleman of my own blood."

"Were he not so accredited," returned Hastings, "I should question the
truth of a man who can thus consent to play the spy upon his lord and
superior."

"The public weal justifies