's letter will touch the right string,
and you cannot do better than deliver it with a plain story. A young
partisan like thee is not to be despised. Thou must trust to Lord
Warwick to set matters right with his brother; and now, before I say
further, let me ask thee, plainly, and without offence, Dost thou so
love the House of York that no chance could ever make thee turn sword
against it? Answer as I ask,--under thy breath; those drawers are
parlous spies!"

And here, in justice to Marmaduke Nevile and to his betters, it is
necessary to preface his reply by some brief remarks, to which we must
crave the earnest attention of the reader. What we call PATRIOTISM,
in the high and catholic acceptation of the word, was little if at all
understood in days when passion, pride, and interest were motives little
softened by reflection and education, and softened still less by the
fusion of classes that characterized the small States of old, and marks
the civilization of a modern age. Though the right by descent of the
House of York, if genealogy alone were consulted, was indisputably
prior to that of Lancaster, yet the long exercise of power in the latter
House, the genius of the Fourth Henry, and the victories of the Fifth,
would no doubt have completely superseded the obsolete claims of the
Yorkists, had Henry VI. possessed any of the qualities necessary for
the time. As it was, men had got puzzled by genealogies and cavils; the
sanctity attached to the king's name was weakened by his doubtful right
to his throne, and the Wars of the rival Roses were at last (with two
exceptions, presently to be noted) the mere contests of exasperated
factions, in which public considerations were scarcely even made the
blind to individual interest, prejudice, or passion.

Thus, instances of desertion, from the one to the other party, even by
the highest nobles, and on the very eve of battle, had grown so common
that little if any disgrace was attached to them; and any knight or
captain held an affront to himself an amply sufficient cause for the
transfer of his allegiance. It would be obviously absurd to expect in
any of the actors of that age the more elevated doctrines of party faith
and public honour, which clearer notions of national morality, and the
salutary exercise of a large general opinion, free from the passions of
single individuals, have brought into practice in our more enlightened
days. The individual feelings of the individual