torical name a keen though honourable ambition for political power,
Lord Thetford has been care fully educated, especially in the new ideas
of his time. His father, though a man of no ordinary talents, has never
taken a prominent part in public life. He desires his eldest son to do
so. The Beaumanoirs have been Whigs from the time of William III. They
have shared the good and the ill fortunes of a party which, whether we
side with it or not, no politician who dreads extremes in the government
of a State so pre-eminently artificial that a prevalent extreme at
either end of the balance would be fatal to equilibrium, can desire to
become extinct or feeble so long as a constitutional monarchy exists
in England. From the reign of George I. to the death of George IV., the
Beaumanoirs were in the ascendant. Visit their family portrait gallery,
and you must admire the eminence of a house which, during that interval
of less than a century, contributed so many men to the service of the
State or the adornment of the Court,--so many Ministers, Ambassadors,
Generals, Lord Chamberlains, and Masters of the Horse. When the younger
Pitt beat the great Whig Houses, the Beaumanoirs vanish into comparative
obscurity; they reemerge with the accession of William IV., and once
more produce bulwarks of the State and ornaments of the Crown. The
present Lord of Beaumanoir, _poco curante_ in politics though he be, has
at least held high offices at Court; and, as a matter of course, he is
Lord Lieutenant of his county, as well as Knight of the Garter. He is
a man whom the chiefs of his party have been accustomed to consult on
critical questions. He gives his opinions confidentially and modestly,
and when they are rejected never takes offence. He thinks that a time
is coming when the head of the Beaumanoirs should descend into the lists
and fight hand-to-hand with any Hodge or Hobson in the cause of his
country for the benefit of the Whigs. Too lazy or too old to do this
himself, he says to his son, "You must do it: without effort of mine the
thing may last my life. It needs effort of yours that the thing may last
through your own."

Lord Thetford cheerfully responds to the paternal admonition. He curbs
his natural inclinations, which are neither inelegant nor unmanly; for,
on the one side, he is very fond of music and painting, an accomplished
amateur, and deemed a sound connoisseur in both; and, on the other side,
he has a passion for all field sp