ERNEST MALTRAVERS

BY EDWARD BULWER LYTTON
(Lord Lytton)

BOOK V.

PARODY.

My hero, turned author, lies mute in this section,
You may pass by the place if you're bored by reflection:
But if honest enough to be fond of the Muse,
Stay, and read where you're able, and sleep where you choose.
THEOC. /Epig. in Hippon/.

CHAPTER I.

"My genius spreads her wing,
And flies where Britain courts the western spring.

* * * * *

Pride in their port, defiance in their eye,
I see the lords of human kind pass by,
Intent on high designs."-GOLDSMITH.

I HAVE no respect for the Englishman who re-enters London after long
residence abroad without a pulse that beats quick and a heart that
heaves high. The public buildings are few, and, for the most part,
mean; the monuments of antiquity not comparable to those which the