was wont to discredit the idle rumour which
would assign to so distinguished a guest so unseemly a lodgment. But, as
I looked from the narrow lattices of the chambers, over the wide expanse
of ocean and of land which they commanded; as I noted, too, that the
tower was utterly separated from the rest of the house, and that the
convenience of its site enabled one on quitting it, to escape at once,
and privately, either to the solitary beach, or to the glades and groves
of the wide park which stretched behind,--I could not help indulging
the belief that the unceremonious and not unromantic noble had himself
selected his place of retirement, and that, in so doing, the gallant of
a stately court was not perhaps undesirous of securing at well-chosen
moments a brief relaxation from the heavy honours of country homage; or
that the patron and poetic admirer of the dreaming Spenser might have
preferred, to all more gorgeous accommodation, the quiet and unseen
egress to that sea and shore, which, if we may believe the accomplished
Roman,* are so fertile in the powers of inspiration.

* "O mare, O litus, verum secretumque Movoetov, quam multa dictatis,
quam multa invenitis!"--PLINIUS.

"O sea, O shore, true and secret sanctuary of the Muses, how many things
ye dictate, how many things ye discover!"

However this be, I had cheated myself into the belief that my conjecture
was true, and I had petitioned my uncle, when, on leaving school, he
assigned to each of us our several apartments, to grant me the exclusive
right to this dilapidated tower. I gained my boon easily enough; and--so
strangely is our future fate compounded from past trifles--I verily
believe that the strong desire which thenceforth seized me to visit
courts and mix with statesmen--which afterwards hurried me into
intrigue, war, the plots of London, the dissipations of Paris, the
perilous schemes of Petersburg, nay, the very hardships of a Cossack
tent--was first formed by the imaginary honour of inhabiting the same
chamber as the glittering but ill-fated courtier of my own name. Thus
youth imitates where it should avoid; and thus that which should have
been to me a warning became an example.

In the oaken floor to the outer chamber of this tower was situated a
trap-door, the entrance into a lower room or rather cell, fitted up as
a bath; and here a wooden door opened into a long subterranean passage
that led out into a cavern by the sea-shore. This cave, part