"Name it not---oh, name it not!" exclaimed Grosvenor, in agony: "I would not think on the future---I would carefully banish it from idea. The present has enough of evil; the present bows man to the dust under a load of misfortunes; the present bears in its grasp an immensity of depravity :---who dares penetrate into the vast, the terrible future!"

"Man," said Lord Montague, calmly; "and he ought to do it; it is necessary to his future existence that he should."

"Sufficient for the day be the evil thereof!" said Grosvenor, with energy; 66 we must not look into the future. Who would groan under existence that saw the evils futurity has in store? My lord, it could not be; its page is too dark for the view of man: its horrors would blind him."

"We did not exactly comprehend each other," said Lord Montague, seriously: "I thought you were speaking of the eternal future; you imagined that my view did not extend beyond a comparative present."

66

Eternity! O, my God! what shall I be through eternity?"

He paused---it was an awful pause: the deluded Deist looked into himself, and trembled. He shrunk from reflection, and it pursued him; he dared it, and it tortured him to agony: he was awake, and his life was a constant effort to drown the voice of conscience; he slept, and the most frightful visions harrowed his soul; in the walks of public life, in the privacy of retirement, the avenging fiend haunt

ed him:---in the senate, it palsied his voice, obscured his perception, and shook his nerves; in the assemblies of pleasure, it lacerated his heart to misanthropy; hating the virtuous because they were so, and because their lives condemned his; shunning the happy, because they conjured up the remembrance of former felicity; shrinking from the vicious, because they had sunk him to the wretch he was; despising the trifling, because they rendered him more sensible of the weight that oppressed him: he yet was compelled, by turns, to herd with them all; and at length, seeking refuge in his chamber, he found there a fiercer torment,---a restless, accusing monitor, torturing, but, happily, not yet silenced.

"This will not do," said Grosvenor, rousing himself; "this will never do! Where shall I have the pleasure of attending you, my lord? I am at your command, any where."

"I wish to see Lady Anne de Burgh; she interested me always."

"Lady Anne!-ha!-true, Lady AnneAnne de Burgh! Her protectress, the Countess de Chateau-vieux, you know, perhaps !"

"The Countess de Chateau-vieux I knew in England?-the married Countess ?"

"Yes: M. le Comte in France, I suppose; his political character better known here, I dare say. A decided friend of Napoleon Buonaparte an enthusiastic one. The Countess has a political connection with the Duke of -the nature of it unknown to me; for you are to be informed, my lord," smiling

mournfully, "that, at present, I am not of his party."

A

"I hope I have satisfaction in believing, that Mr. Grosvenor will always be independent, and, consequently, superior to any party. You spoke of the Countess de Chateau-vieux; -a political connection with the Duke of The Countess has not been long in

England ?"

"Very few months.”

"The Duke's acquaintance with her consequently recent;-a political connection between them; negotiations, perhaps-private negotiations."

Exactly the Countess is not publicly in England."

"The Duke of engaged in private negotiation with the Countess du Chateauvieux at a period exactly preceding the arrival of Buonaparte in France! No political negotia tion ought to be-if honourable, never can be -so private that His Majesty's council are not aware of it-do not, in fact, transact it. The Duke never was one of that council. Mr. Grosvenor, I congratulate you with my whole soul, that you are not of this man's party."

"Good God! what a chain of circumstances are you combining! and it entirely escaped me! 'twas fitting it should do so. The infamy of the Duke will be my own. My lord, my lord, why did you ever leave England?"

Mr. Grosvenor, at present we have no leisure for question or reply. Be silent; leave all to me. You are bound; trust to me, I will

you.

release Dare only to be yourself. Discard Voltaire, and adopt your Bible: do not blush to be called a Christian. And now conduct me to the Countess."

CHAP. VII.

What's to be done? Be innocent of the knowledge, dearest chuck, Till thou applaud the deed.

SHAKSPEARE.

"Hail, star of my isle!" said the spirit, all sparkling,
With beams such as break from my own dewy skies;
Through ages of sorrow, deserted and darkling,
I've watched for some glory like thine to arise!

MOORE.

“Ah, grandeur ! que tu es belle; quand la vertu te rends utile!"

"To Lady Jane Lorn.

FLORIAN.

"THE X is returned! Who suspectedcould have imagined it? So sudden! so secret! It burst on us like a thunder-storm in a cloudless sky! The minister is, of necessity, engaged beyond all possibility of regarding inferior concerns. The commenced correspondence must be instantly stopped;-the papers already transmitted, returned. Burn all you have about you:--a letter-a line-a single cypher, may betray and ruin us beyond redemption. The Countess cannot return to France, for all passage thither will certainly be impracticable. All the furies of Hell league to overwhelm us. That babbling woman, having got rid of the grief that lately overwhelmed her, will delight in relating how

she conspired to raise the X from his decadence. What a tale she can unfold !---enough to blast us eternally! Once crushed, we cannot rise again;-once bowed, we are overwhelmed forever.

"And Lord Montague was seen in London last night! He!-that man whose genius, whose mind, one would hesitate to think were mortal, if Napoleon and the premier did not exist!he whom you essayed to comprehend -strove with all your energies, and were baffled, he is the sworn brother of the minister! If they unite, we are irretrievably lost: Hell itself could not withstand them; the centre would not hide us from their eagle-glance; the sea might roll over us, and yet we should be discovered.

"Secure Grosvenor:---I cannot sufficiently applaud the address with which you have managed him :---these well-principled men are stubborn beyond all power of bending them, until touched by infidelity: that is the grand secret of rendering them pliable; thy genius, dear Jane, can effect any thing. I care not how soon you marry him; 'tis a vacillating being; Lord Montague's controul may steady him---always that man must thwart me; he was born to be my fate; the fate of every one within his sphere. Would to God Grosvenor had been coiled in the net, before he arrived! Would to---; I will not act the boy, and think of impossibilities.

"The Parliament will meet directly: prepare a speech for Percival ;---brilliancy---pathos