reader is about to see.

The queen died; and a cloud already began to look menacing to the eyes
of the Viscount Bolingbroke, and therefore to those of the Count
Devereux. "We will weather out the shower," said Bolingbroke.

"Could not you," said I, "make our friend Oxford the Talapat?"* and
Bolingbroke laughed. All men find wit in the jests broken on their
enemies!


* A thing used by the Siamese for the same purpose as we now use the
umbrella. A work descriptive of Siam, by M. de la Loubere, in which the
Talapat is somewhat minutely described, having been translated into
English, and having excited some curiosity, a few years before Count
Devereux now uses the word, the allusion was probably familiar.--ED.


One morning, however, I received a laconic note from him, which,
notwithstanding its shortness and seeming gayety, I knew well signified
that something not calculated for laughter had occurred. I went, and
found that his new Majesty had deprived him of the seals and secured his
papers. We looked very blank at each other. At last, Bolingbroke
smiled. I must say that, culpable as he was in some points as a
politician,--culpable, not from being ambitious (for I would not give
much for the statesman who is otherwise), but from not having
inseparably linked his ambition to the welfare of his country, rather
than to that of a party; for, despite of what has been said of him, his
ambition was never selfish,--culpable as he was when glory allured him,
he was most admirable when danger assailed him!* and, by the shade of