of
method and much of similarity. But the feelings--those orators which
allow no calculation and baffle the tameness of comparison--rendered
Wolfe alone, unique, eccentric in opinion or action, whether of vice or
virtue.

Private ties frequently moderate the ardour of our public enthusiasm.
Wolfe had none. His nearest relation was Warner, and it may readily
be supposed that with the pensive and contemplative artist he had very
little in common. He had never married, nor had ever seemed to wander
from his stern and sterile path, in the most transient pursuit of the
pleasures of sense. Inflexibly honest, rigidly austere,--in his moral
character his bitterest enemies could detect no flaw,--poor, even to
indigence, he had invariably refused all overtures of the government;
thrice imprisoned and heavily fined for his doctrines, no fear of a
future, no remembrance of the past punishment could ever silence his
bitter eloquence or moderate the passion of his distempered zeal;
kindly, though rude, his scanty means were ever shared by the less
honest and disinterested followers of his faith; and he had been known
for days to deprive himself of food, and for nights of shelter, for the
purpose of yielding food and shelter to another.

Such was the man doomed to forsake, through a long and wasted life,
every substantial blessing, in pursuit of a shadowy good; with the
warmest benevolence in his heart, to relinquish private affections, and
to brood even to madness over public offences; to sacrifice everything
in a generous though erring devotion for that freedom whose cause,
instead of promoting, he was calculated to retard; and, while he
believed himself the martyr of a high and uncompromising virtue, to
close his career with the greatest of human crimes.

CHAPTER XVI.

Faith, methinks his humour is good, and his purse will buy
good company.--The Parson's Wedding.

When Clarence returned home, after the conversation recorded in our last
chapter, he found a note from Talbot, inviting him to meet some friends
of the latter at supper that evening. It was the first time Clarence had
been asked, and he looked forward with some curiosity and impatience to
the hour appointed in the note.

It is impossible to convey any idea of the jealous rancour felt by Mr.
and Mrs. Copperas on hearing of this distinction,--a distinction which
"the perfect courtier" had never once bestowed upon themselves.

Mrs. Copperas tossed he