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PAUL CLIFFORD, Volume 7.
By Edward Bulwer-Lytton
O Fortuna, viris invida fortibus
Quam non aqua bonis praemia dividis.
SENECA.
. . . . . . . . . . . .
And as a hare, whom hounds and horns pursue,
Pants to the place from whence at first he flew.
. . . . . . . . . . . .
Here, to the houseless child of want,
My door is open still.
GOLDSMITH.
Slowly for Lucy waned the weeks of a winter which to her was the mostdreary portion of life she had ever passed. It became the time for thejudge to attend one of those periodical visitations so fraught with dreadand dismay to the miserable inmates of the dark abodes which the complexlaws of this country so bounteously supply,—those times of greathilarity and eating to the legal gentry,—
"Who feed on crimes and fatten on distress,
And wring vile mirth from suffering's last excess."
Ah! excellent order of the world, which it is so wicked to disturb! Howmiraculously beautiful must be that system which makes wine out of thescorching tears of guilt; and from the suffocating suspense, the agonizedfear, the compelled and self-mocking bravery, the awful sentence, thedespairing death-pang of one man, furnishes the smirking expectation offees, the jovial meeting, and the mercenary holiday to another! "Of Law,nothing less can be said than that her seat is the bosom of God."—[Hooker's Ecclesiastical Polity.]—To be sure not; Richard Hooker, youare perfectly right. The divinity of a sessions and the inspiration ofthe Old Bailey are undeniable!
The care of Sir William Brandon had effectually kept from Lucy's ear theknowledge of her lover's ignominious situation. Indeed, in her delicatehealth even the hard eye of Brandon and the thoughtless glance ofMauleverer perceived the danger of such a discovery. The earl, nowwaiting the main attack on Lucy till the curtain had forever dropped onClifford, proceeded with great caution and delicacy in his suit to hispurposed bride. He waited with the more patience inasmuch as he haddrawn in advance on his friend Sir William for some portion of theheiress's fortune; and he readily allowed that he could not in the meanwhile have a better advocate than he found in Brandon. So persuasive,indeed, and so subtle was the eloquence of this able sophist, that oftenin his artful conversations with his niece he left even on the unvitiatedand strong though simple mind of Lucy an uneasy and restless impression,which time might have ripened into an inclination towards the worldlyadvantages of the marriage at her command. Brandon was no bunglingmediator or violent persecutor. He seemed to acquiesce in her rejectionof Mauleverer. He scarcely recurred to the event. He rarely praised theearl himself, save for the obvious qualities of liveliness and good-nature. But he spoke, with all the vivid colours he could infuse at willinto his words, of the pleasures and the duties of rank and wealth. Wellcould he appeal alike to all the prejudices and all the foibles of thehuman breast, and govern virtue through its weaknesses. Lucy had beenbrought up, like the daughters of most country gentlemen of ancientfamily, in an undue and idle consciousness of superior birth; and she wasfar from inaccessible to the warmth and even