ind
employment sufficient in amusing our wives, and dancing our children. But
Adrian is alone, wifeless, childless, unoccupied. I have long observed him.
He pines for want of some interest in life. His heart, exhausted by his
early sufferings, reposes like a new-healed limb, and shrinks from all
excitement. But his understanding, his charity, his virtues, want a field
for exercise and display; and we will procure it for him. Besides, is it
not a shame, that the genius of Adrian should fade from the earth like a
flower in an untrod mountain-path, fruitless? Do you think Nature composed
his surpassing machine for no purpose? Believe me, he was destined to be
the author of infinite good to his native England. Has she not bestowed on
him every gift in prodigality?--birth, wealth, talent, goodness? Does not
every one love and admire him? and does he not delight singly in such
efforts as manifest his love to all? Come, I see that you are already
persuaded, and will second me when I propose him to-night in parliament."

"You have got up all your arguments in excellent order," I replied; "and,
if Adrian consent, they are unanswerable. One only condition I would make,
--that you do nothing without his concurrence."

"I believe you are in the right," said Raymond; "although I had thought at
first to arrange the affair differently. Be it so. I will go instantly to
Adrian; and, if he inclines to consent, you will not destroy my labour by
persuading him to return, and turn squirrel again in Windsor Forest. Idris,
you will not act the traitor towards me?"

"Trust me," replied she, "I will preserve a strict neutrality."

"For my part," said I, "I am too well convinced of the worth of our friend,
and the rich harvest of benefits that all England would reap from his
Protectorship, to deprive my countrymen of such a blessing, if he consent
to bestow it on them."

In the evening Adrian visited us.--"Do you cabal also against me," said
he, laughing; "and will you make common cause with Raymond, in dragging a
poor visionary from the clouds to surround him with the fire-works and
blasts of earthly grandeur, instead of heavenly rays and airs? I thought
you knew me better."

"I do know you better," I replied "than to think that you would be happy in
such a situation; but the good you would do to others may be an inducement,
since the time is probably arrived when you can put your theories into
practice, and you may bring about such reform