* * * * *

The fine immortal spirit of inspiration that is ever living in human
affairs, is unseen and incredible till its power becomes apparent
through the long past; as the invisible but indelible blue of the
atmosphere is not seen except we look through extended space.

* * * * *

The distinction between the sensual, frivolous many, and the few
spiritual and earnest, may be stated thus--the first vaguely guess the
others to be fools, _they_ know that the former are fools.

* * * * *

[FROM THE NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE.]

FRANK HAMILTON; OR, THE CONFESSIONS OF AN ONLY SON.

BY W.H. MAXWELL, ESQ.

* * * * *

CHAPTER I.

"_Malvolio._ 'Tis but fortune; all is fortune."

_Twelfth Night_.

"_Bassanio_. 'Tis not unknown to you, Antonio,
How much I have disabled my state.
By something showing a more swelling port
Than my faint means would grant continuance."

_Merchant of Venice_.

I am by birth an Irishman, and descended from an ancient family. I lay
no claim to any connection with Brian Boru, or Malichi, of the crown
of gold, a gentleman who, notwithstanding the poetical authority
of Tom Moore, we have some reason to believe during his long and
illustrious reign was never master of a crown sterling. My ancestor
was Colonel Hamilton, as stout a Cromwellian as ever led a squadron
of Noll's Ironsides to a charge. If my education was not of the
first order, it was for no lack of instructors. My father, a half-pay
dragoon, had me on the pig-skin before my legs were long enough to
reach the saddle-skirt; the keeper, in proper time, taught me to
shoot: a retired gentleman, _olim_, of the Welsh fusileers, with a
single leg and sixty pounds per annum, paid quarterly by Greenwood
and Cox, indoctrinated me in the mystery of tying a fly, and casting
the same correctly. The curate--the least successful of the lot,
poor man--did his best to communicate Greek and Latin, and my cousin
Constance gave me my first lessons in the art of love. All were able
professors in their way, but cousin Constance was infinitely the most
agreeable.

I am by accident an only son. My mother, in two years after she had
sworn obedience at the altar, presented her liege lord with a couple
of pledges of connubial love, and the gender of both was masculine.
Twelve years elapsed and no addition was made to the Hamil