CHAPTER XV.

Bound to suffer persecution
And martyrdom with resolution,
T'oppose himself against the hate
And vengeance of the incensed state.--Hudibras.

Born of respectable though not wealthy parents, John Wolfe was one of
those fiery and daring spirits which, previous to some mighty
revolution, Fate seems to scatter over various parts of the earth,
even those removed from the predestined explosion,--heralds of the
events in which they are fitted though not fated to be actors. The
period at which he is presented to the reader was one considerably
prior to that French Revolution so much debated and so little
understood. But some such event, though not foreseen by the common,
had been already foreboded by the more enlightened, eye; and Wolfe,
from a protracted residence in France among the most discontented of
its freer spirits, had brought hope to that burning enthusiasm which
had long made the pervading passion of his existence.

Bold to ferocity, generous in devotion to folly in self-sacrifice,
unflinching in his tenets to a degree which rendered their ardour
ineffectual to all times, because utterly inapplicable to the present,
Wolfe was one of those zealots whose very virtues have the semblance
of vice, and whose very capacities for danger become harmless from the
rashness of their excess.

It was not among the philosophers and reasoners of France that Wolfe
had drawn strength to his opinions: whatever such companions might