baron to the English earl) without having ever changed his politics,
which were ultra-Tory; and we need not observe that he was deemed, like
Brandon, a model of public integrity. He was possessed of two places
under government, six votes in the House of Commons, and eight livings in
the Church; and we must add, in justice to his loyal and religious
principles, that there was not in the three kingdoms a firmer friend to
the existing establishments.

Whenever a nobleman does not marry, people try to take away his
character. Lord Mauleverer had never married. The Whigs had been very
bitter on the subject; they even alluded to it in the House of Commons,--
that chaste assembly, where the never-failing subject of reproach against
Mr. Pitt was the not being of an amorous temperament; but they had not
hitherto prevailed against the stout earl's celibacy. It is true that if
he was devoid of a wife, he had secured to himself plenty of substitutes;
his profession was that of a man of gallantry; and though he avoided the
daughters, it was only to make love to the mothers. But his lordship had
now attained a certain age, and it was at last circulated among his
friends that he intended to look out for a Lady Mauleverer.

"Spare your caresses," said his toady-in-chief to a certain duchess, who
had three portionless daughters; "Mauleverer has sworn that he will not
choose among your order. You know his high politics, and you will not
wonder at his declaring himself averse in matrimony as in morals to a
community of goods."

The announcement of the earl's matrimonial design and the circulation of
this anecdote set all the clergymen's daughters in England on a blaze of
expectation; and when Mauleverer came to shire, upon obtaining the honour
of the lieutenancy, to visit his estates and court the friendship of his