to the leading nobility and gentry of the county; but it proved a more difficult task than his lordship had anticipated for Titmouse's early doings at Yatton had not yet been forgotten: some of the haughty Whig gentry joined with their Tory neighbours in manifesting their open contempt, and dislike, for one who could so disgrace the name and station to which he had been elevated in the county; and the Earl had to encounter one or two somewhat mortifying rebuffs, in the course of the efforts which he was making for the establishment of his young kinsman. There were some, however, whom mere political considerations-some whom deference for the Earl's rank, and unwillingness to hurt his feelings, and others from considerations of political interest-induced to receive the new squire of Yatton on a footing of formal intimacy and equality; so that his lordship's numerous drives were not entirely useless. The whole party at the Hall attended the Earl to church on the Sundays-entirely filling the squire's pew and the adjoining one; their decorous conduct presenting a very edifying spectacle to the humble congregation, and suggesting a striking contrast between the present and the former visiters at the Hall. Worthy Doctor Tatham was asked several times to dinner, at the Earl's instance, who treated him on such occasions with great though stately courtesy. The only persons with whom the little doctor felt at his ease, were Mr Gammon and Miss Macspleuchan, who treated him with the utmost cordiality and respect. What became during the day of the two ladies, I hardly know. There was no instrument at Yatton bagatelle-board, and novels from a circulating library at York, frequent rides and drives through the grounds and about the country, and occasional visits to and from one or two families with whom Lady Cecilia had a town acquaintance, occupied their day; and in the evening, a rubber at whist, or cribbage, or ecarté, with the Earl-sometimes, too, with the Marquis and Mr Tuft, both of whom lost no opportunity of paying marked attention to Lady Cecilia, with a view of dissipating as far as possible the inevitable ennui of her situation would while away the short evenings, very early hours being now kept at the Hall. 'Twas won.

derful that two such men as the Marquis and Mr Tuft could stay so long as they did at so very dull a place, and with such dull people. Inwardly, they both voted the Earl an insufferable old twaddler; his daughter a piece of languid insipidity; and one would have thought it daily more irksome for them to keep up their courtly attentions. They had, however, as may presently be seen, their objects in view.

As Gammon, a little to the Earl's surprise, continued apparently a permanent guest at the Hall, where he seemed ever engaged in superintending and getting into order the important affairs of Mr Titmouse, it could hardly be but that he and the Earl should be occasionally thrown together; for as the Earl did not shoot, and never read books, even had there been any to read, he had little to do when not engaged upon the expeditions I have alluded do, but saunter about the house and grounds, and enter into conversation with almost any one he met. The assistance which Gammon had rendered the Earl on the occasion of their first meeting at dinner, had not been forgot. ten by his lordship, but had served to take off the edge from his pregonceived contemptuous dislike for him. Gammon steadily kept in the back ground, resolved that all advances should come from the Earl. When, once or twice, his lordship enquired, with what Gammon saw to be only an affected carelessness, into the state of Mr Titmouse's affairs, Mr Gammon evinced a courteous readiness to give him general information; but with an evident caution and anxiety, not unduly to expose, even to the Earl, Mr Titmouse's distinguished kinsman, the state of his property. He would, however, disclose sufficient to satisfy the Earl of Mr Gammon's zeal and ability on behalf of Mr Titmouse's interests, his consummate qualifications as a man of business; and from time to time perceived that his display was not lost upon the Earl. Mr Gammon's anxiety, in particular, to prevent the borough of Yatton from being a second time wrested out of the hands of its proprietor, and returning, by a corrupt and profligate arrangement with ministers, a Tory to Parliament, gave the Earl peculiar satisfaction. He was led into a long conversation with Mr Gammon upon political mat

he safely presumed that the Earl would be, as also he proved, perfectly familiar; and his lordship would go on for an hour at once upon these interesting and vividly-exciting subjects.

Shortly after luncheon one day, of which only Gammon, the Earl, and the two ladies, were in the hall to partake, Mr Gammon had occasion to enter the drawing-room, where he found the Earl sitting upon the sofa, with his heavy gold spectacles on, leaning over the table, engaged in the perusal of a portion of a work then in course of periodical publication, which had only that day been delivered at the Hall. The Earl asked Gammon if he had seen it, and was answered in the negative.

"Sir," said the Earl, rising and removing his glasses, "it is a remarkably interesting publication, showing considerable knowledge of a very difficult and all-important subject, and one, in respect of which the lower orders of the people-nay, I lament to be obliged to add, the great bulk of the middle classes also, are wofully deficient-I mean heraldry, and the history of the origin, progress, and present state of the families of the old nobility and gentry of this country." The work which had been so fortunate as thus to meet with the approbation of the Earl, was the last monthly number of a History of the County of York, and of which work, as yet, only thirty-eight seven-andsixpenny quarto numbers had made their appearance. 'Twas an admirable work, every number of which had contained a glorification of some different Yorkshire family. The discriminating patronage of Mr Titmouse for this inestimable performance, had been secured by a most obsequious letter from the learned editor-but more especially by a device of his in the last number, which it would have been strange indeed if it could have failed to catch the eye, and interest the feelings of the new aristocratical owner of Yatton. Opposite to an engraving of the Hall, was placed a mag

*

nificent genealogical tree, surmounted by a many-quartered shield of armorial bearings, both of which purported to be an accurate record of the ancestral glories of the house of TITMOUSE of YATTON!' A minute investigation might indeed have detected that the recent flight of Titmice, which were perched on the lower branches of this imposing pedigree, bore nearly as small a proportion to the long array of chivalrous Drelincourts and Dreddlingtons which constituted the massy trunk, as did the paternal coat (to which the profound research and ingenuity of Sir GORGEOUS TINTACK, the kingat-arms, had succeeded in demonstrating the inalienable right of Tittlebat) to the interminable series of quarterings, derived from the same source, which occupied the remainder of the escocheon. At these mysteriously significant symbols, however, Mr Titmouse, though willing to believe that they indicated some just cause or other of family pride, had looked with the same appreciating intelligence which you may fancy you see a chicken displaying, while hesitatingly clapping its foot upon, and quaintly cocking its eye at, a slip of paper lying in a yard, covered over with algebraic characters and calculations. otherwise, however, was it with the Earl, in whose eyes the complex and recondite character of the production infinitely enhanced its value, and struck in his bosom several deep chords of genealogical feeling, as he proceeded, in answer to various anxious enquiries of Gammon, to give him a very full and minute account of the unrivalled splendour and antiquity of his lordship's ancestry. Now Gammonwhile prosecuting the researches which had preceded the elevation of Mr Titmouse to that rank and fortune of which the united voice of the fashionable world had now pronounced him so eminently worthy-had made himself pretty well acquainted with the previous history and connexions of that ancient and illustrious house, of which the Earl of Dreddlington was

Far

the head; and his familiarity with this topic, though it did not surprise the Earl, because he conceived it to be every one's duty to acquaint himself with such momentous matters, rapidly raised him in the good opinion of the Earl, to whom, at length, it occurred to view him in quite a new light; viz. as the chosen instrument by whose means (under Providence) the perverse and self-willed Aubrey had been righteously cast down from that high place which his rebellious opposition to the wishes and political views of his liege lord, had rendered him unworthy to occupy; while a more loyal branch had been raised from obscurity to his forfeited rank and estates. In fact, the Earl began to look upon Gammon as one whose just regard for his lordship's transcendant position in the aristocracy of England, had led him even to anticipate his lordship's possible wishes; and proceeded accordingly to rivet this spontaneous allegiance, by discoursing with the most condescending affability on the successive noble and princely alliances which had, during a long series of generations, refined the ancient blood of the Drelincourts into the sort of super-sublimated ichor which at present flowed in his own veins. Mr Gammon marked the progress of the Earl's feelings with the greatest interest, perceiving the increasing extent to which respect for him-Gammon-was mingling with his sublime self-satisfaction; and, watching his opportunity, struck a spark into the dry tinder of his vain imagination-blew it gently—and saw that it caught, and spread. Confident in his knowledge of the state of the Earl's feelings, and that his lordship had reached the highest point of credulity, Gammon intimated, in a hesitating but yet impressive manner, his impression that the recent failure in the male line of the princely house of HOCH-STIFFELHAUSEN NARRENSTEIN DUMERLEINBERG* had placed his lordship, in right of the marriage of one of his ancestors, during the thirty years' war, with a princess of that august line, in a situation to claim, if such were his lordship's pleasure, the dormant honours and sovereign rank at

tached to the possession of that important principality. The Earl appeared for a few moments transfixed with awe. The bare possibility of such an event seemed too much for him to realize; but when further conversation with Gammon had familiarized his lordship with the notion, his mind's eye glanced to his old rival, the Earl of Fitzwarren: what would he say to all this? How would his little honours pale beside the splendours of his Serene Highness the Prince of Hoch-Stiffelhausen Narrenstein Dumerleinberg! He was not sorry when Mr Gammon soon af terwards left him to follow out, unrestrained by the swelling current of his thoughts, and yield himself up to, the transporting ecstasies of anticipated sovereignty. To such a pitch did his excitement carry him, that he might shortly afterwards have been seen walking up and down the Elm Avenue, with the feelings and the air of an old KING.

Not satisfied, however, with the success of his daring experiment upon the credulity and inflammable imagination of the aspiring old nobleman-whom his suggestion had set upon instituting extensive enquiries into the position of his family with reference to the foreign alliances which it had formed in times past, and of which so dazzling an incident might really be in existenceit occurred to Mr Gammon, on another occasion of his being left alone with the Earl, and who he saw was growing manifestly more pleased with the frequent recurrence of them, to sink a shaft into a new mine. He therefore, on mere speculation, introduced, as a subject of casual conversation, the imprudence of persons of rank and large fortune devolving the management of their pecuniary affairs so entirely upon others-and thus leaving themselves exposed to all the serious consequences of employing incompetent, indolent, or mercenary agents. Mr Gammon proceeded to observe that he had recently known an instance of a distinguished nobleman, (whose name he for very obvious reasons suppressed,) who, having occasion to raise a large sum of money by way of mortgage, left the sole nego

tiation of the affair to an agent, who was afterwards proved to have been in league with the lender, (the mortgagee,) and permitted his employer to pay, for ten or twelve years, an excess of interest over what he might, with a little exertion, have obtained money for, which actually made a difference in his income of a thousand a-year. Here, looking out of the north-east corner of his eye, the placid speaker, continuing unmoved, observed the Earl start a little, glance somewhat anxiously at him, but in silence, and slightly quicken the pace at which he had been walking. Gammon presently added, in a careless sort of way, that accident had brought him into professional intercourse with that nobleman-[Oh Gammon! Gammon!] -whom he was ultimately instrumental in saving from the annual robbery that was being inflicted upon him. It was enough; Gammon saw that what he had been saying had sunk like lead into the mind of his companion, who, for the rest of the day, seemed burdened and oppressed with it-or some other cause of anxiety; and, from an occasional uneasy and wistful eye which the Earl fixed upon him at dinner, he felt conscious that not long would elapse, before he should hear something from the Earl connected with the topic in question-and he was not mistaken. The very next day they met in the park; and, after one or two casual observations, the Earl remarked that, by the way, with reference to their yesterday's conversasation, it "did so happen,"-very singularly that the Earl had a friend who was placed in a situation very similar to that which had been mentioned by Mr Gammon to the Earl; a very intimate friend-and the Earl would like to hear what was Mr Gammon's opinion of the case. Gammon was scarcely able to refrain from a smile, as the Earl went on, evincing every moment a more vivid interest in behalf of his mysterious friend, who at last stood suddenly confessed as the Earl of Dreddlington; for, in answer to a question of Mr Gammon, his lordship unwittingly spoke in the first person. On perceiving this, he got much confused, but Gammon passed it off very easily; and by his earnest, confidential tone and manner, soon soothed and reconciled the Earl to the vexatious disclosure he had made

―vexatious only because the Earl had thought fit, so very unnecessarily, to make a mystery of an everyday matter. He rather loftily enjoined Mr Gammon to secrecy upon the subject, to which Gammon readily pledged himself, and then they entered upon an unrestrained discussion of the matter. Suffice it to say, that in the end Gammon assured the Earl that he would without any difficulty undertake to procure a transfer of the mortgage at present existing on his lordship's pro.. perty, which should lower his annual payments by at least one-and-a-half per cent; and which, on a rough calculation, would make a difference of very nearly five hundred a-year in the Earl's favour! But Gammon explicitly informed the Earl, that he was not to suppose that his interests had been in any way neglected, or he overreached, in the original transaction; that it had been conducted on his lordship's behalf, by his solicitor, Mr Pounce, one of the most respectable men in the profession; and that a few years made all the difference in matters of this description; and before he, Mr Gammon, would interfere any further in the business, he requested his lordship to write to Mr Pounce, enclosing a draft of the arrangement proposed by Mr Gammon, and desiring Mr Pounce to say what he thought of it. This the Earl did; and in a few days' time received an answer from Mr Pounce, to the effect that he was happy that there was a prospect of so favourable an arrangement as that proposed, to which he could see no objection whatever; and would co-operate with Mr Gammon in any way, and at any time, which his lordship might point out. Gammon was, in fact, rendering here a real and very important service to the Earl; being an able, acute, and energetic man of business—while Mr Pounce was very nearly superannuated, had grown rich and indolent, no longer attending to business with his pristine energy, but pottering and dozing over it, as it were, from day to day; unable, from his antiquated style of doing business, and the constantly narrowing circle of his connexions, to avail himself of those resources which were open to younger and more energetic practitioners, with more varied resources. Thus, though money was now much more plentiful, and conse

Mr