was considered a wit.

"Hear, hear!" cried the gentlemen on the opposite benches,

Mr. Ferdinand Fitzroy sat down--he had not shone; but, in justice, he
had not failed. Many a first-rate speaker had began worse; and many a
country member had been declared a phoenix of promise upon half his
merit.

Not so, thought the heroes of corn-laws.

"Your Adonises never make orators!" said a crack speaker with a wry
nose.

"Nor men of business either," added the chairman of a committee, with a
face like a kangaroo's.

"Poor devil!" said the civilest of the set. "He's a deuced deal too
handsome for a speaker! By Jove, he is going to speak again--this will
never do; we must cough him down!"

And Mr. Ferdinand Fitzroy was accordingly coughed down.

Our hero was now seven or eight and twenty, handsomer than ever, and the
adoration of the young ladies at Almack's.

"We have nothing to leave you," said the parents, who had long spent
their fortune, and now lived on the credit of having once enjoyed
it.--"You are the handsomest man in London; you must marry an heiress."