! Hark ye, William Hastings de Hastings, I know you to be a deep
and ambitious man; but better for you had you covered that learned
brain under the cowl of a mendicant friar than lent one thought to the
counsels of the Earl of Warwick."

Hastings, who felt even to fondness the affection which Edward generally
inspired in those about his person, and who, far from sympathizing,
except in hate of the Woodvilles, with the earl, saw that beneath
that mighty tree no new plants could push into their fullest foliage,
reddened with anger at this imperious menace.

"My liege," said he, with becoming dignity and spirit, "if you can thus
address your most tried confidant and your lealest friend, your most
dangerous enemy is yourself."

"Stay, man," said the king, softening. "I was over warm, but the wild
beast within me is chafed. Would Gloucester were here!"

"I can tell you what would be the counsels of that wise young prince,
for I know his mind," answered Hastings.

"Ay, he and you love each other well. Speak out."

"Prince Richard is a great reader of Italian lere. He saith that those
small States are treasuries of all experience. From that lere Prince
Richard would say to you, 'Where a subject is so great as to be feared,
and too much beloved to be destroyed, the king must remember how Tarpeia
was crushed."

"I remember naught of Tarpeia, and I detest parables."

"Tarpeia, sire (it is a story of old Rome), was crushed under the
weight of presents. Oh, my liege," continued Hastings, warming with that
interest which an able man feels in his own superior art, "were I king
for a year, by the end of it Warwick should be the most unpopular (and
therefore the weakest) lord in England!"

"And how, O wise in thine own conceit?"

"Beau sire," resumed Hastings, not heeding the rebuke--and strangely
enough he proceeded to point out, as the means of destroying the earl's
influence, the very method that the archbishop had detailed to Montagu
as that which would make the influence irresistible and permanent--"Beau
sire," resumed Hastings, "Lord Warwick is beloved by the people, because
they consider him maltreated; he is esteemed by the people, because they
consider him above all bribe; he is venerated by the people, because
they believe that in all their complaints and struggles he is
independent (he alone) of the king. Instead of love, I would raise envy;
for instead of cold countenance I would heap him with grace. Instead of