been arranged, and the troubles which he foresaw impending for Europe
prevented. So successfully had Armine played his part, that his
mysterious and doubtful career occasioned a controversy, from which only
the appearance of Napoleon distracted universal attention, and which,
indeed, only wholly ceased within these few years. What were his
intentions? Was he or was he not a sincere Jacobin? If he made the offer
to the royal family, why did he vote for their death? Was he resolved,
at all events, to be at the head of one of the parties? A middle course
would not suit such a man; and so on. Interminable were the queries and
their solutions, the pamphlets and the memoirs, which the conduct of
this vain man occasioned, and which must assuredly have appeased his
manes. Recently it has been discovered that the charge brought against
Armine was perfectly false and purely malicious. Its victim, however,
could not resist the dazzling celebrity of the imaginary crime, and he
preferred the reputation of closing his career by conduct which at once
perplexed and astonished mankind, to a vindication which would have
deprived his name of some brilliant accessories, and spared him to a
life of which he was perhaps wearied.

By the unhappy victim of his vanity and passion Sir Ferdinand Armine
left one child, a son, whom he had never seen, now Sir Ratcliffe.
Brought up in sadness and in seclusion, education had faithfully
developed the characteristics of a reserved and melancholy mind.
Pride of lineage and sentiments of religion, which even in early youth
darkened into bigotry, were not incompatible with strong affections,
a stern sense of duty, and a spirit of chivalric honour. Limited in
capacity, he was, however, firm in purpose. Trembling at the name of his
father, and devoted to the unhappy parent whose presence he had scarcely
ever quitted, a word of reproach had never escaped his lips against the
chieftain of his blood, and one, too, whose career, how little soever
his child could sympathise with it, still maintained, in men's mouths
and minds, the name and memory of the house of Armine. At the death
of his father Sir Ratcliffe had just attained his majority, and
he succeeded to immense estates encumbered with mortgages, and to
considerable debts, which his feelings of honour would have compelled
him to discharge, had they indeed been enforced by no other claim. The
estates of the family, on their restoration, had not been entail