Campbell come to take his scat as Chancellor on the woolsack." He declares that Lyndhurst afterwards used to flatter Brougham, successfully angled for a new supporter, and set him on to torment his old friends. When Campbell asked him one day what he was going to do about a certain bill before the house, 'Me,' exclaimed he, 'what I mean to do! I never open my mouth now and I oppose nothing. Ask Brougham there what he means to do. He is the man now. Brougham, lend me your majority-and "I'll do, I'll do, and I'll do."' It appears to us that this was not intrigue, but, as in the former instance, merely 'chaff,' and, if it may be said without irreverence, at times these great law lords were almost romping like schoolboys. When Lyndhurst was at Dieppe, 'I heard he was assisting his great friend, Baron Alderson, to fly paper kites-and amusing himself by turns with the writings of the Greek and Latin fathers on divorce and the amorous novels of Eugène Sue.' Although four times Chancellor, he is represented as not being a great judge. To save trouble, in appeals, he used generally to affirm. On the other hand, Lord Cottenham was always inclined and ready to reverse. Of Cottenham, 'The wags in the Court of Chancery went so far as to say that he always presumed the decree to be wrong till the contrary was proved, the odds being two to one against Vice-Chancellor Shadwell, and three to one against ViceChancellor Knight Bruce.' He is evidently very sore on the complete sway which Lyndhurst had over the House of Lords in the time of the Melbourne ministry, when he remorselessly threw out all their bills he could and made his cutting sessional reviews. After the repeal of the Corn Laws the Whigs retaliated against the Conservative Government. There was a Bill before the Upper House, to which Campbell saw no objection. But the Protectionist Peers, headed by the Duke of Richmond-to show their spite offered to coalesce with us in throwing it out, and we, alas! had not the virtue to withstand the

temptation. Accordingly it was thrown out on the second reading, and I must with shame confess very factiously.' Lord Campbell gives anecdotes of Sir Robert Peel's contemptuous treatment of Lord Lyndhurst. But we may be very sure that Sir Robert Peel had no real feeling of contempt towards Lyndhurst. He knew that Lyndhurst was a thorough Conservative, which he was not, and possessed that confidence of the party which he was about to forfeit. Lord Lyndhurst might perhaps once and again have been Premier; almost to the age of ninety he was a living power in the House of Lords, with a supreme sway over that august assembly while, from all we hear, every one was laughing at Campbell's vanity and overweening pre

tensions.

The following are specimens of Lord Campbell's offensive and libellous style: Although the new Lady Lyndhurst, like her predecessor, tried to become a leader of fashion, she preserved an unsuspected reputation,' &c. This is just the kind of remark to be made by some spiteful old woman, who deserves to be ducked in a pond or tossed in a blanket. Again, we are solemnly assured that it was not a fact that Lord Lyndhurst's servants were bailiffs in disguise. We are also informed that he took no bribes. Again, he tells us that Lord Lyndhurst had a sinister smile of great cunning and some malignity.' 'He might have risen to celebrity as a diner out. His great resource was to abuse or ridicule the absent. He was accustomed, when conversing with political opponents, to abuse and laugh at his own colleagues and associates.' The animus which dictates these virulent remarks-to a great degree, we believe, absolutely mendacious-is very perceptible.

Towards Lord Brougham he is equally merciless. He has, with great industry, collected all the good stories that belong to the decline and fall of the Chancellor. He tells the story of his drinking bumper after bumper of wine in the course of his great Reform speech, and when he went upon his knees to

implore the peers to pass the bill, it appeared doubtful to the House whether the effects of the liquor would suffer him to rise. The account of the famous Scottish progress is racily given. Going northward, he dined with the bar mess, on the northern circuit, instead of dining with the judge, and then sang comic French songs to the young fellows, and then declared that he would willingly exchange the Great Seal for a brief at Nisi Prius. Then he went to the proud Duke of Hamilton, Brandon, and Châtelherault, who had a lingering notion that he was the rightful king of Scotland. He stayed at another great house, and romped with a lot of young girls, who, to teaze him, carried away the Great Seal and hid it. At last the Chancellor became quite frightened about that mystical document, on whose safety the British Constitution is supposed to depend. The girls then agreed that it should be put somewhere in the drawing-room, that the Chancellor should be blindfolded and hunt about for it, and that one of the young ladies should play loudly on the piano if he came near it. In this way the Chancellor discovered it in a tea-chest; but a very pretty narrative of his little game was somehow sent to Windsor Castle. . At Inverness, he discovered an old Edinburgh friend, and the two passed the evening at Brougham's hotel, drinking whisky toddy. When posttime came, he told his friend to go on with the toddy, but he must take np a few minutes by writing to the king; and going to a side table, he knocked off an epistle to his Majesty, which, when received, gave dire offence. He obtruded himself at Oxenford Castle, though he knew Earl Grey was coming and he was not wanted; and although the young Ladies Grey did all they could to avoid him, he succeeded in making himself very agreeable to them. Afterwards, Campbell met him at supper at Lord Jeffery's: We sat up till long after cock-crow, and Brougham was most good-natured and agreeable.' Noctes cænæque Deum! But perhaps Brougham showed his greatest brusquerie to the

king himself. Lords of the bedchamber stared at his unceremonious and dictatorial tone. When he had to give up the Great Seal, he sent it to the king in a bag, as a fishmonger might send a salmon. Brougham also showed his bad manners at the court of Queen Victoria. When he dined at Buckingham Palace, he went away directly after dinner, instead of going with the rest of the gentlemen into the gallery. Afterwards, at the queen's drawingroom, instead of passing her Majesty, on his own accord he stopped to speak to her, and told her that he was going to Paris, and could he take anything for her to Louis Philippe! We have heard that Louis Philippe and Brougham would sit up all night talking, and Brougham once had a notion that he might be a naturalized Frenchman without ceasing to be an Englishman, and have a great parliamentary career in France, in the days when France had a constitutional government.

Lord Campbell thinks, and most persons will certainly think the same, that Lord Melbourne acted shamefully by Brougham, in deceiving and betraying him. But then Lord Melbourne said, 'Although he will be dangerous as an enomy, he will be certain destruction as a friend.' He could not act with him, and would not try to do so. We are almost afraid to say all that we have heard of Lord Brougham,-kicking through the panel of a door; swearing in his judicial robes; taking up his hat and walking away from a Cabinet Council. Henceforth he was stranded high and dry, and no turn of affairs ever floated him again into office. But it may be said, both of Lord Lyndhurst and Lord Brougham, that the last days were the best days. Lord Campbell has little mention or appreciation of this, but so it was. In these last days they were best understood and best honoured. Lyndhurst was the old man eloquent,' the British Nestor, the warning patriot, the unselfish parliamentary debater. When upwards of eighty he recovered his sight, and his youth was renewed as an eagle's. The new generation had forgotten

Now he had been a week in town, during which period he met Miss Bruce at least once every day. This constant intercourse is to be explained in a few words.

Mrs. Stanmore, the Aunt Agatha with whom Maud expressed herself so unwilling to reside, was a sister of the late Mr. Bruce. She had married a widower with one son, that widower being old Mr. Stanmore, defunct, that son being Dick. Mrs. Stanmore, in the enjoyment of a large jointure, which rather impoverished her step-son, though arbitrary and unpleasant, was a woman of generous instincts, so offered Maud a home the moment she learned her niece's double bereavement, which home, for many reasons, heiress or no heiress, Miss Bruce felt constrained to accept. Thus it came about that she found herself walking with Tom Ryfe en cachette in the Square gardens, and leaving them, recognized the gentleman whom she was to meet at luncheon in ten minutes, on whose intellect at least, if not his heart, she felt pretty sure she had already made an impression.

'I won't show her up,' said Dick, to his neatest boots, while he scraped them at his mother's door; 'but I should like to know who that bumptious-looking chap is, and what the h-ll she could have to say to him in the Square gardens all the same.'

Mr. Stanmore's language at the luncheon-table, it is needless to say, was far less emphatic than that which relieved his feelings in soliloquy; nor was he to-day quite so talkative as usual. His mother thought him silent (he always called her 'mother,' and, to do her justice, she could not have loved her own son better, nor scolded him oftener, had she possessed one); Miss Bruce voted him stupid and sulky. She told him so.

A merrythought, if you please, and no bread sauce,' said the young lady, in her calm, imperious manner. 'Don't forget I hate bread sauce, if you mean to come here often to luncheon; and do say something. Aunt Agatha can't; no more can I. Recollect we've got a heavy afternoon before us.'

Aunt Agatha always contradicted. 'Not heavier than any other breakfast, Maud,' said she, severely. 'You didn't think that tea at the Tower heavy last week, nor the ghosts in the mess-room of the Blues. Lady Goldthred's an old friend of mine; and it was very kind of her to ask us. Besides, Dick's coming down in the barouche.'

Maud's face brightened, and, be sure, Dick saw it brighten.

"That accounts for it,' said she, with the rare smile in her eyes; 'and he thinks we shan't let him smoke, so he sulks beforehand, grim, grave, and silent as a ghost. Mr. Stanmore, cheer up. You may smoke the whole way down. give you leave.'

'Nonsense, my dear,' observed Aunt Agatha, sternly. 'He don't want to do anything of the kind. What have you been about, Maud, all the morning? I looked for you everywhere to help me with the visiting-list.'

'Puckers and I took a "constitutional," answered Miss Bruce, unblushingly. We wanted to do some shopping.' But her dark eyes stole towards Dick, and although his never met them, she felt satisfied he had witnessed her interview with Tom Ryfo in the Square gardens.

'I saw you both coming in, Miss Bruce,' said Dick, breaking the awkward pause which succeeded Maud's misstatement. 'I think Packers wears twice as smart a bonnet as yours. I hope you are not offended.'

Again that smile from the dark eyes. Dick felt, and perhaps she meant him to feel, that he had lost nothing in her good opinion by ignoring even to herself that which she wished to keep unknown.

'I think you've very little taste in bonnets, whatever you may have in faces,' answered the young lady;

and I think I shall go and put one on now that will make you eat your words humbly when I appear in it on the lawn at Lady Goldthred's.'

'I have no doubt there won't be a dry eye in the place,' answered Dick, looking after her, as she left the room, with undisguised admira