was entirely removed by the hopes afforded to him of a speedy translation
to a more brilliant office: it was whispered among those not unlikely to
foresee such events, that the interest of the government required his
talents in the house of peers. Just at this moment, too, the fell
disease, whose ravages Brandon endeavoured, as jealously as possible, to
hide from the public, had appeared suddenly to yield to the skill of a
new physician; and by the administration of medicines which a man less
stern or resolute might have trembled to adopt (so powerful and for the
most part deadly was their nature), he passed from a state of almost
insufferable torture to an elysium of tranquillity and ease. Perhaps,
however, the medicines which altered also decayed his constitution; and
it was observable that in two cases where the physician had attained a
like success by the same means, the patients had died suddenly, exactly
at the time when their cure seemed to be finally completed. However, Sir
William Brandon appeared very little anticipative of danger. His manner
became more cheerful and even than it had ever been before; there was a
certain lightness in his gait, a certain exhilaration in his voice and
eye, which seemed the tokens of one from whom a heavy burden had been
suddenly raised, and who was no longer prevented from the eagerness of
hope by the engrossing claims of a bodily pain. He had always been bland
in society, but now his courtesy breathed less of artifice,--it took a
more hearty tone. Another alteration was discernible in him, and that
was precisely the reverse of what might have been expected. He became
more thrifty, more attentive to the expenses of life than he had been.
Though a despiser of show and ostentation, and far too hard to be
luxurious, he was too scientific an architect of the weaknesses of others
not to have maintained during his public career an opulent appearance and
a hospitable table. The profession he had adopted requires, perhaps,
less of externals to aid it than any other; still Brandon had affected to
preserve parliamentary as well as legal importance; and though his house