nefit whom?--other folks. Talk of
remorse! By all the fires and furies, the remorse I have is for things I
haven't done and might have done! Why did I spare Lucretia? She hated me
ever after, and her husband went the way for which he was predestined.
Why have I let this lad off?--that March and the rest, who don't want
him, may pluck him! And I have a bad repute; and I am the man people
point at, and call the wicked lord, and against whom women warn their
sons! Pardi, I am not a penny worse, only a great deal more unlucky
than my neighbours, and 'tis only my cursed weakness that has been my
greatest enemy!" Here, manifestly, in setting down a speech which a
gentleman only thought, a chronicler overdraws his account with
the patient reader, who has a right not to accept this draft on his
credulity. But have not Livy, and Thucydides, and a score more of
historians, made speeches for their heroes, which we know the latter
never thought of delivering? How much more may we then, knowing my Lord
Castlewood's character so intimately as we do, declare what was passing
in his mind, and transcribe his thoughts on this paper? What? a whole
pack of the wolves are on the hunt after this lamb, and will make a meal
of him presently, and one hungry old hunter is to stand by, and not have
a single cutlet? Who has not admired that noble speech of my Lord Clive,
when reproached on his return from India with making rather too free
with jaghires, lakhs, gold mohurs, diamonds, pearls, and what not? "Upon
my life," said the hero of Plassy, "when I think of my opportunities, I
am surprised I took so little!"

To tell disagreeable stories of a gentleman, until one is in a manner
forced to impart them, is always painful to a feeling mind. Hence,
though I have known, before the very first page of this history was
written, what sort of a person my Lord Castlewood was, and in what
esteem he was held by his contemporaries, I have kept back much that was
unpleasant about him, only allowing the candid reader to perceive that
he was a nobleman who ought not to be at all of our liking. It is true
that my Lord March, and other gentlemen of whom he complained, would
have thought no more of betting with Mr. Warrington for his last
shilling, and taking their winnings, than they would scruple to pick the
bones of a chicken; that they would take any advantage of the game, or
their superior skill in it, of the race, and their private knowledge
of the horses en